“The issue of Identity” is an indeterminate and difficult subject to exhaust; full of contradictions expressed and discussed in vague language, evoking emotions and ideological disputes, especially in the context of conflicting identities. The author does not exhaustively discuss, but only just points to some threads of reflection on various forms of identity, functioning in a specific cultural and social entanglement. From semantic doubts, through the reservations of historians asking about time with regard to identity and the important remarks of sociologists resembling the unresolved dispute between nominalists and realists – the author tries to point out only some of the complications besetting a researcher seeking for “identity”.

The Balkan region has always been a crossroad of cultures, religions, customs, ethnicities and, hence, research related to intercultural communications in this area in different periods gives different results. The actual ethnographic condition of the Balkans now, followed by statistic data, censuses, related to displacements, and the relevance of official data, creates the picture of languages that are used in the Balkans. In the 21st century different processes are going on, some fading out, and other finding room to activate (again) not only through languages and lexicon (active, passive and disappeared), but through other forms, too. The critical analysis of the discourse of Balkans witnesses the art of linking of differences through languages (Slavic, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Bosnian, Herzegovinian, Montenegrin; and non-Slavic: Greek, Turkish, Albanian, English) supplemented by nonverbal communication, as a wide space for building the impression of common conditions. All this reflects on the national identities and on the construction of diverse characteristics as a sum of diversities on the Balkans.

The real or only the imaginary identities of the nations inhabiting the present territory of the Balkans have an aspect not only real as a combination of events and historical facts as well as contemporary changes, but also the dimension of transmedia tales of Macedonian identity. These two levels of forming or creating identity processes not only co-exist or compete with each other, they also permeate each other. Today, however, this second aspect of creating – often imaginative and self-identifying – transmedia auto-narrations about the origin of identity prevails. They are then an attempt, an effect of mediatisation processes, i.e. mediation of the memory of the past or the present by the media not only in the narrow sense as the press, radio television, the Internet, but also as all memory carriers (from historical sources, museums, monuments, anniversary celebrations to transmedia stories, film, theatre or widely understood art).

The disintegration of Yugoslavia in the last decade of the twentieth century has resulted in the breakdown of many of the ties that have grown to a greater or lesser extent during the period of its existence. Apart from the economic, political or social ties, one must not forget about a certain linguistic community, which has been developing since the nineteenth century, including Serbs and Croats, as well as present-day people of Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

There are many myths and misconceptions surrounding it that will continue to cause heated discussions and debates. This happens regardless whether Serbo-Croatian is treated as a real existence or merely as an artificial creation, a result of the policies of the respective countries.

The current standardization processes (including legal), which at all costs demonstrate the differences between Croatian, Serbian, Montenegrin and Bosnian, are the result of politicization of the language. It happens even though people using these different (?) languages can understand each other with no difficulty (same as in e.g. English in the US and Great Britain or German in Germany and Austria).

The politics of Russian Empire towards Balkan states and nations 1830–1914, summarizes the most important problems of Russian political, military and economic expansion at the Balkan Peninsula in the mentioned period. The author attempts to define Russia’s role in the nation and state creation processes in the Balkan Peninsula. The historical significance of Russia in ending Ottoman domination in Southern Europe is also underlined. Finally, the presentation focuses on the analogy between the politics of tsarist Russia towards the Balkans, and the politics of the contemporary Russian Federation towards this area.

With examples taken across the Republic of Macedonia, this paper investigates the symbolic representations of the Jews in Macedonia, i.e. “facilities” that express their identity and history and allow their visibility in the public space. I am speaking here not only for monuments and museums, but also for settlements and other symbols that created / create the image of Jews in Macedonia through time. The goal is to answer a few questions: What are the symbols that represent Jewish history and culture in the public sphere? What do these symbols tell us? What meanings or what emotions do they evoke in people? Of course, the discursive dimension of symbolic representations is very important, especially the socially constructed role which is attributed to those facilities. In accordance with these approaches, the identity construction as one of the key functions of symbolic representation, takes place within the social placed narratives of Jews, which means its dynamics and variables is directly related to social events, political changes, etc.

The goal of this paper is to show the expansion of the Turkish policy, defined as neo-Ottomanism, in the post-Yugoslavian countries, and its effect in the spheres of political, economic and cultural life. The author asks the questions: do Turkish influences contribute to the specific culture of European Islam, of which the goal, despite prevailing Islamophobia, is to disseminate ideals of tolerance between nations and religions? Does the Turkish capital contribute only to the economic development of post-Yugoslavian countries through investments? On the other hand, the reactivation of neo-Ottomanism may contribute to the development of radical tendencies, including religious fundamentalism, which is, in many aspects, a threat to post-Yugoslavian countries. More and more researchers and political experts claim that the political situation in the Balkans can be destabilized as a result of the domination of the Muslim environment, whereas the dissemination of radical versions of this religion such as Wahhabism may favour the development of Islamic terrorism. Firstly, Serbian researchers have a critical approach to this issue and they claim that neo-Ottomanism is of a revisionist nature, because it disturbs the political balance in the western Balkans resulting from the Dayton Agreement (1995).

The history of the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija in the 20th century was rather marked by the secessionist movement of Kosovo Albanians from Serbia and Yugoslavia than with integration as a way of solving old inter-ethnic conflicts between Serbs and Albaniаns. After the Second World War and the subsequent communist takeover, Yugoslavia was restored as a communist federation, and Serbia became one of its six federal units, with Kosovo and Metohija, a region with a mixed Serb and Albanian population, within its borders. Kosovo in the present boundaries first became a region (1946) and then an autonomous province (1963) within the Socialist Republic of Serbia one of the six constituent republics of federal Yugoslavia. The Kosovo status was upgraded by constitutional amendments (1968–1972) and finally by the 1974 Constitution which gave Kosovo Albanians the main say in the province’s political life, a decision approved by communist dictator Tito in order to pacify the growing Albanian nationalism, strongly supported by neighbouring Stalinist Albania of Enver Hoxha. This policy triggered a process of repeated discrimination of the Kosovo Serbs throughout the 1970s that in the early 1980s, escalated into large-scale Albanian nationalist demonstrations, after March 1981 onwards, demanding that Kosovo be given the right to secede, thus announcing the rapid disintegration of the Yugoslav communist federation. Separation instead of integration became an official policy of Kosovo Albanians.

Serbia’s stubborness to recognize Kosovo independence and a continuous effort to bring Kosovo back under its state jurisdiction seems to be in political terms irrational. However, this has been a continuous strategy of all Serbian governments since Milosevićs’ fall in 2000. The aim of the paper is to try to give explanations to this, at first sight, paradoxical phenomenon. Is there any rationality in this irrationality? Author finds Craig Parsons’s typology of explanations very useful in understanding the phenomenon of Serbia’s politics toward Kosovo after 2000.

The process of diffusion of international norms and democratic standards in the post-war Kosovo is a multilevel process which involved many actors (international organizations, the government of Kosovo, local administration and non-governmental organizations). This process can be understood as a sequence of the promotion of international standards, translating them into local meaning and choosing which international norms can be implemented in the domestic realm by agents (contestation of the norms) and the materialization of the norm in the system of legislation (location, acceptance or rejection). In this case for example, the promotion of international standards can be considered to present the plan of Martti Ahtisaari (Comprehensive Proposal for the Kosovo Status Settlement) in February 2007, the operations and activities of the UNMIK mission, ICR (International Civilian Representative for Kosovo) and ICO (International Civilian Office). By contestation standards should be understood as developed from the international standards in the local discourse by peacebuilding agents and locations – as decision and choice as to which standards should be implemented into the system of national legislation. In the case of Kosovo, not every international standard was transferred successfully to the local realm, while launching democratic institutions can be understood as a limited success, the minority law and non-discrimination policies still require a lot of work to be done.

By the outbreak of the civil war in the 1990s, traditional Bosnian Islam was moderate and liberal, however its nature underwent some deep changes especially under the influence of the Arab Mujahideen, who supported the Bosnian Muslims in the fighting with the Serbs, and – after the civil war – stayed in the country.

The author discusses possible variants of the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina: either the latent conflict will continue, which may lead to new acts of violence and disintegration of the country, or the consolidated state will be able to rebuild social trust and political stabilization, and finally will successfully complete its integration with the European Union and NATO. Unfortunately, Bosnia and Herzegovina remains vulnerable to Islamic political-religious extremism. Probably the Bosnian Muslims, who are attached to the local tradition of moderate and progressive Islam, may reject radical slogans. One must remember, however, that when in the 1990s the intolerant ideas appeared in the Western Balkans, they were belittled. Soon it turned out that extremists from religiously oriented political parties quickly went from slogans and manifestations to violence. We must not underestimate the current situation, because the crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina is particularly vulnerable to the impact of radical movements.

The situation is complicated by the fact that Bosnia and Herzegovina no longer functions only as a safe haven for Islamic radicals. The war in Syria, Iraq, international terrorism, economic and social crisis in the Muslim world have led to a horrendous migration/refugee crisis which has created the “gateway” to Europe for many Islamic fundamentalists in the whole region of the Western Balkans. That is why, according to many nationalists – in Bosnia, in the region, and in Europe – the days of Western civilization’s final clash with Islam are coming. In Bosnia, the Orthodox population counts on Russia’s leadership in the final victory over global jihad. An additional element on the geopolitical chessboard is Turkey, which is gaining greater power in the international arena and which strongly supports the reconstruction of the “Ottoman” identity in the Balkans.

The main characteristic of the Bosnia-Herzegovinian population to the 1992–1995 war was multinationalism, which accounted for three of the most numerous nations (Muslims, Croats and Serbs), than the nations of the former Yugoslav republics (Slovenes, Montenegrins and Macedonians) and 18 national minorities (Albanians, Austrians, Bulgarians, Czechs, Germans, Greeks, Hungarians, Italians, Jews, Poles, Romanians, Roma, Russians, Ruthenians, Slovaks, Ukrainians, Turks and Vlachs). Although their share in total the Bosnian-Herzegovinian population was about one percent, but during the communist period of their civil and national rights were guaranteed in all the Yugoslav and Bosnian-Herzegovinian constitutions after 1946. After the 1992–1995 war, the rights of national minorities were regulated in the spring of 2003 under the Law of Protection of National Minorities. However, in everyday life, they are not able to realize all their national and civic rights. In contrast to the communist period, according to the census of 2013, the national minorities are not specifically stated, but are classified as “Other”. So today, we have no information about the many ethnic minorities that recorded the census of 1991.

The situation of the ethnic minorities in Montenegro is quite complex. Although they enjoy full civic rights, a lot of discontent is on record. Serbs, the largest minority (29% of population of Montenegro), want their position enshrined in the constitution. They believe in their basic ethnic and cultural identity with the Montenegrins and claim that 1/3 of the people of Montenegro cannot be regarded as a mere minority. In 2006 the Serbs of Montenegro were totally opposed to the proclamation of independence. For this reason they alone have not shared power in Montenegro. The smaller minorities (Albanians, Bosnians, Croats, Muslims) were adamant in their support of the independence of Montenegro. They have coexisted with the central authorities of Montenegro and members of these minorities have been participating in public office. Their enmity to Serbs dating to the war in former Yugoslavia has made the position of Milo Djukanović secure for over two decades. The election scheduled for 16 October 2016 could change the status quo. The activists of ethnic minorities, in recent years disillusioned with the policy of the government of Montenegro, have built a multi-ethnic coalition with some ethnic Montenegrins which aims at removing the team of Milo Djukanović, in their opinion corrupt and criminal, from power. A quarter of a century after the war in Yugoslavia, the new generation has come of age for whom the future of the country rather than the memory of the fratricidal war is the primary concern.

The article uses the theory of Józef Kozielecki, which is the subject matter of his reflections in his work: Transgresja i kultura. Transgressive actions are actions of the “outside” – changing the existing status quo. At the same time, in this case transgression is directed “towards people” in order for them to unite (so-called community transgressions). Moving from one group to another and adopting a different model of competence, patterns of cultural behaviour, is characteristic for the Goranie people living on the border of Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo. The Goranie, depending on the political, economic, warfare situation, in order to survive or improve their economic situation, directed their steps towards their Slavic neighbours, identifying with them, adopting their life style, official language, some customs. In the first years of the 21st century, it is becoming more and more typical to build a Goranie ethnic identity and to maintain the “Našinski” language, which is used only at home, as it has not been recognized in any country they live in. Further processes of Goranie transgression, a transition from one group to another, in this case to the Albanian group, and adopting a different model of competence, patterns of cultural behaviour are inevitable in the near future. This is mainly due to the difficult economic conditions of the Goranie and the life of the Albanian enclave.

A small community of Ruthenians in Vojvodina is extremely interesting, and its culture is still vital. More than 260-year history of their stay in Vojvodina is a story about the struggle to preserve their traditions, culture, faith and language. The community itself has evolved as national consciousness – from religious-based Ruthenian faith to the modern national-cultural. The article deals with issues of national self-identification of Ruthenians in Vojvodina, among whom, as is the case among Ruthenians in other countries, are supporters of options autonomous – (carpatho)Ruthenian and Ukrainian. More recently, mainly in journalism, there are also individual voices of closer cultural (and perhaps identification) of the Eastern Slovaks and so vichodňarski movement.

The report puts forth a thesis about the falsification of the national census in Pirin, Macedonia in December 1946. The results of the census formally announces a Macedonian ethnic face of this territory. The report bases justifying the falsity results of the census on many Bulgarian archival documents of this period. They show a great manipulation in the question of national identification of population in the Pirin Region, in which the majority de facto unambiguously regarded themselves as Bulgarians. The census was carried out under strong pressure of political factors: Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Bulgarian communist authorities.

The aim of this paper is to outline how the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) in Bulgaria has evolved. The party was founded in 1990 by Ahmed Dogan and started as the first political representation of Bulgarian Turks. After more than 25 years in Bulgarian political life, MRF is still arousing controversy. Regarding Article 11.4 of Bulgarian Constitution which bans political parties formed on ethnic, racial and religious lines, MRF seems to be likely anti-constitutional and illegal. However, the MRF politicians’ statements and the statute clearly show that the party prefers to be perceived as “all Bulgarian citizens’ political force” – liberal and European-oriented, over the years it still doesn’t look clear what the nature of MRF is.

Who exactly were the ancient Macedonians – Greeks, barbarians, Illyrians, Thracians or mixed people? This is one of the most controversial issues in historical science which was very popular in the course of the past century and does not cease to be current even today. Although the ancient sources clearly attest to the uniqueness of the ancient Macedonians in comparison to other neighboring ethnic groups, some researchers still believe that the ancient Macedonians were Greeks. Their arguments can be best illustrated by the following questions: First, if the ancient Macedonians were not Greeks, how did they as an independent, militarily dominant people, receive Greek culture and become its most prominent representatives? Furthermore, why did Alexander III, after conquering the East, accept the Hellenic dialect (koine) as the official language of his country? Why have numerous inscriptions in Greek been found in Macedonia? Why were numerous historical works from Macedonia in ancient times written in Ionic or the Ionic-Attic dialect, even when their authors were Macedonians and knew Macedonian? These issues are the subject of study in the proposed work.

This article is devoted to the analysis of the formation of state leadership in the states created after the breakup of the Yugoslav federation. Presidency was quite a new political solution, it has not occurred during the first Yugoslavia (1918–1941) nor, for obvious reasons, before World War I (lack of the state system, or the monarchical form of state – the cases of Serbia and Montenegro). The formation of new political and social institutions at the beginning of the 1990s was related to the functioning of the Yugoslav state on the one hand, and on the other hand to the observation and perception of external solutions, which did not always fit in the political system of a Balkan state

After the disintegration of communist Yugoslavia a new entity was created – the Federative Republic of Yugoslavia. The newly created state consisted of two Republics previously belonging to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia – Serbia and Montenegro. At the beginning, when FR Yugoslavia was created, both Belgrade and Podgorica shared a common goal which was unifying the federation – an effort to territorially expand and cover territories which the Serbian or Montenegrin population were living on. However, in time this changed. First, the democratic option with Milo Djukanović at helm took power in Montenegro in 1998 and afterwards, in 2000 the situation dramatically changed in Belgrade as well, as the democratic opposition overthrew Slobodan Milošević. This meant that a new reassessment of relations within the Federation needed to take place. However, immediately after the 2000 election, the newly elected government in Serbia was not willing to make any big changes in the structure of the country as it needed to focus on more pressing issues within the Republic. Over time this lead to a gradual increase in tensions between Belgrade and Podgorica. After the initial stall a fresh approach to the reform was undertaken which led to the creation of Serbia and Montenegro in 2003. It turned out that the newly created state would not be long lived as in 2006 Montenegro opted for independence. The article examines the process of reform that has led to the creation of Serbia and Montenegro in a search for explanation of main factors that have contributed to the fact that the newly created state did not pass the test of time.