[LINK] "Of Palaces and Politics"

[rfmcdonald]

The latest, unusual, episode of the ongoing drama over Macedonia--what is it, where is it, who has a right to claim Macedonian identity?--is described in Transitions Online by Ljubica Grozdanovska. The Macedonian government, it seems, has chosen to grant several dozen square kilometres of land to host a palace for the royal family of the Hunza people of northern Pakistan on the grounds of the latter group's claim to descent from the soldiers of Alexander the Great.

Around 140 kilometers southeast of Skopje, hard by the Greek border, lies the village of Paljurci.

In truth, it’s hardly a village, as no one lives here anymore. In 1908 Paljurci was attacked and burned to its foundations by Greek soldiers. Today it’s better known as the site of a dammed-up lake, and the only sign of former habitation is an abandoned well. Aside from that, the remnants of a stone wall mark the spot where the front line passed through here in World War I.

That’s all about to change. This tranquil spot, criss-crossed by armies for hundreds of years, is set to become the setting for a palace to house the royal family of the Hunza people of northern Pakistan. The Hunzas, who claim descent from the army of Alexander the Great, will get a grant of 37,000 square meters of state-owned land from the municipality of Bogdanci, in which Paljurci sits.

“We have decided to give this land as a present because they are descendants of Alexander the Great and the Hunza people feel like true Macedonians. Many citizens of Macedonia don’t feel like they belong to this country,” says Risto Ichkov, the mayor of Bogdanci and member of the ruling VMRO-DPMNE party.

The gift has the blessing of the government but has shocked many historians into near speechlessness. And opposition parties argue that it is another step in the government’s “antiquitization” of the country.

The plan is part of a search for identity that Skopje has led the nation on, with the current government insisting that Macedonians are a part of the ancient race that goes by that name, countering decades of history lessons that traced the citizens of the present-day Macedonian state to the Slavic lands of the Carpathian mountains.

Skopje has embraced – some would say expropriated – the figures of Alexander the Great and his father, Philip II of Macedon, much to the irritation of Athens.

As part of its quest, the government commissioned the huge Skopje 2014 project to remake the city into a seat of neo-classical and neo-baroque architecture. Additionally, the name of the airport was changed to Alexander the Great, while the city stadium is now the Philip II of Macedon Arena.

[. . .]

As for the claims for the Hunza royals, Alexander’s army did reach into Pakistan, but a 2006 study in the European Journal of Human Genetics seemed “to exclude a large Greek contribution to any Pakistani population, confirming previous observations.” The researchers identified Alexander’s ethnicity as Greek, and that country has its own proxy in this fight over Alexander’s far-flung descendants. In the same region of northern Pakistan, the Kalashi people also claim to be descendants of Alexander’s army. A few years ago, Greece built a cultural center there and it finances some cultural activities in order for the Kalashi people to learn more about the ancient hero.

Macedonians got their first look at the Hunza people in 2005, when journalist Marina Dojcinovska traveled to Pakistan and made a documentary about them. Since then, she has been their link to Macedonia.

Go, read.