A census in Albania has opened up a new front in the long-running row between Balkan neighbors Bulgaria and North Macedonia.
Both claim Albania’s dwindling Macedonian minority as their own.
The tug-of-war over identity is something of an unequal fight, say locals, with those who opt to become Bulgarian getting a prized EU passport.
Photo: AFP
Sofia and Skopje have been at loggerheads for decades over language, identity and history.
Bulgaria has blocked North Macedonia’s path to EU membership while at the same time giving passports to about 90,000 Macedonians — or about one in 20 of the population — since it joined the bloc.
The latest row centers on a group of Macedonian-speaking villages in one of the most beautiful corners of southeastern Albania on the shores of Lake Prespa, by the border with Greece and North Macedonia.
On Pustec’s mostly empty streets, signs are written in Albanian and Macedonian, but many homes and buildings are derelict, with cracked walls, peeling paint and broken windows.
Like much of rural Albania, young people have left to seek a better life, with locals saying that the population has plummeted to just 1,200 from 3,300 in 2011.
“It’s like a desert here, there are no young people ... the villages are empty,” said Eftim Mitrovski, 65, who works at a local Macedonian-language newspaper. “Only the old and the sick remain.”
Ahead of Albania’s census late last year, some of its tiny Macedonian community said that they came under increasing pressure to identify as Bulgarians — an accusation rejected by Sofia.
“The possibility to get a European passport has strongly affected the Macedonian community,” said Vasil Sterjovski, of the Macedonian Alliance for European Integration party, which represents many of Albania’s Macedonians.
With the census results due in the next few months, Trajan Vangjelovski, administrator at Pustec’s primary school, said that “it has become a battlefield for inter-ethnic conflicts between Bulgaria and North Macedonia.”
Like much of the Balkans, the area’s history is complex. From 1912 to 1945, Albania considered its inhabitants to be Bulgarians.
However, after the end of World War II and the birth of the Macedonian republic within Yugoslavia, Albania classified them as Macedonians, Tirana-based international relations expert Ardi Bido said.
Things changed in 2017 when Albania began recognizing an ethnic Bulgarian minority.
For decades Skopje “denied the existence of a Bulgarian community not only in North Macedonia, but also in Albania,” the Bulgarian embassy in Albania told reporters.
“In the past they [Albanian Bulgarians] did not have this opportunity and for many it was a logical choice to declare themselves as Macedonians, given the common cultural and historical background,” the embassy said in a statement.
Their decision must be respected, the embassy said.
“I am a citizen of Albania, but my origins are Bulgarian,” said Haxhi Pirushi, who works for a Tirana-based nonprofit that supports the Bulgarian minority.
“We speak Bulgarian... We sing in Bulgarian. We cry in Bulgarian,” he said, adding that “for the first time, we have the right to declare openly our origins.”
Pirushi denied that there was coercion from Bulgaria and instead slammed “pressure from North Macedonia.”
“Beyond the ambiguity of identity, there is also a second factor — false declarations,” Bido said.
Some people identify as Macedonian, but officially declare themselves as Bulgarians to obtain a EU passport, he said.
In the past four years, nearly 4,000 Albanian citizens have received Bulgarian travel documents, Bulgarian Ministry of Justice data showed.
In Pustec, the issue continues to sow discord.
“People are worried, confused and disoriented,” Vangjelovski said. “They no longer know whether they should feel like Bulgarians or Macedonians.”
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