2025/09/25 by Ivan Nikolovski · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Cyprus History, Politics, Society #European Union Policy and Governance #Global Educational Policies and Reforms
paper · doi:10.1075/jlp.24229.nik
openalex publication_date 2025/09/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Abstract This article examines how Macedonian opinion makers engage in the Europeanization of memory to justify North Macedonia’s Europeanness amid the bilateral dispute with Bulgaria. Drawing on a Discourse-Historical Approach-informed analysis of 43 opinion pieces from 2019 to 2023, the study demonstrates how national narratives are recontextualized, either aligning with or challenging the EU memory regime. By invoking antifascism and Yugoslav socialist modernity, opinion makers construct a European identity based on local historical legacies through what the article conceptualizes as defensive Europeanization via justification. The latter concept highlights how memory actors resist hegemonic narratives, suggesting an alternative understanding of (EU)rope. As a result, the article proposes a new lens by which Europeanization and European identity can be comprehended.