Macedonian National Brand
Disclaimer: This post builds off the previous posts, please read those before referring back to this.
In an attempt
to understand the “national brand” of North Macedonia and whether or not that
brand matches up with the actual Macedonia, we will fall back on what was
studied in the previous blog posts. As Eurovision is an international stage
where all of Europe and even beyond watches, it logically follows that we can
start to analyze North Macedonia’s brand by examining their performances at
Eurovision. Additionally, comparing this with the national identity discussed
in the “Macedonian National Identity” blog post, and determining whether the
brand given by the performances matches causes in the national identity will be
used to compare North Macedonia’s national brand and the reality of the
country.
As discussed in
the “Macedonian National Identity” post, Macedonians do not have strong or
unique core elements of national identity. They share everything from religion,
to their language, and even common history with other countries. This is a
result of being a former part of Yugoslavia and sharing many attributes with other
closely packed Balkan countries. However, after closer analysis, the Macedonian
national identity is centered around the intersection of otherwise non-distinct
traits. The fragility of this national identity is the reason that some ethnic
Macedonians oppose the changes North Macedonia is currently going through, such
as the name change and adding Albanian as an official language. This and the
full understanding of the Macedonian nation identity discussed in that first blog
post will be used throughout this post as well.
Two Macedonian Eurovision
performances, “Dona” in 2016 and “Dance Alone” in 2017, were analyzed in the
“North Macedonia on the World Stage” post. Written by Kaliopi, one of North
Macedonia’s biggest musical stars, the song, “Dona”, calls out to the Mother
Mary: “Look at me, and smile for me” (FYR Macedonia, 2016). This piece
resonates strongly with ethnics Macedonians as they are mostly Orthodox
Christians. Kaliopi was likely chosen to perform in 2016 in part as she was the
last Macedonian contestant that earned a spot in the finals in addition to her
being one of Macedonia’s largest stars. “Dance Alone” is a piece about reliving
happy old memories and being able to be content regardless of what is going on
in life outside of those memories which is most accurately seen by examining
the song’s promo video. Though the performance itself did not convey this to an
audience with little previous knowledge about the piece, it was written with
that attention in mind. Macedonia hired Symphonix International to write the
2017 Macedonian Eurovision entry. This is a group of writers that write
Eurovision songs for some countries, and many of these songs such as 2018’s
Austrian entry, have done well at Eurovision (“Participants”, n.d.).
Though these
two performances do not seem to push a brand of North Macedonia forward, nor
did they did not do well in Eurovision, they were North Macedonia’s best
attempt at winning the competition. “Dona” is a ballad that does not sound
incredibly Macedonian or Balkan. Though the song has a religious meaning to Kaliopi,
as discussed in my second blog post, she still intends everyone to be thinking
of their own personal ‘Dona’ during the song. As a result, even though it
resonates with ethnic Macedonians, it does not alienate other listers and comes
off just like any other ballad. “Dance alone” is by all means a normal Western
pop song, especially in the way it sounds to an audience. Neither of these two
pieces make any political statements, but instead sound just like any other
typical Eurovision entry. However, for a nation like North Macedonia, isolated
from the full international community for its entire independence, this is a
statement on its own. The want to be just like any other Western nation is the
national brand that Macedonia puts out at Eurovision.
In relation to the Macedonian national
identity, a cluster of indistinct characteristics, wanting to conform to
Western ideals seems like it could be out of character. This alone does not
imply that Macedonians would not rally behind a Western brand but is much more
reasonable considering that North Macedonia aims to become a member of NATO and
the EU soon. The current Macedonian government feels so strongly about joining
the international community that they changed the name of their country to
North Macedonia to have the potential of achieving that goal. Pushing forward
positive Western values could make the integration of North Macedonia into
these groups more successful. As the plan of joining NATO and the EU were on
the Macedonian agenda before the name change deal was accepted, it is logical
that FYR Macedonia also has been sending music similar to the Western entries
on Eurovision stage. In this sense, the performances match up with the
Macedonian national identity and general current state of the country. While
North Macedonia is not putting forward a well-defined national brand at
Eurovision, it does not mean that they do not put forward a stronger brand in
other ways. Following this trend, North Macedonia will likely not be putting
forward any Eurovision performance that promote non-typical Western values
until after they have become a solidified member of both the EU and NATO. Other
potential areas and topics of national branding must be considered over recent
years in order to fully ascertain whether the branding at Eurovision matches
with the rest of Macedonian branding.
From
2010-2014, North Macedonia underwent a campaign to give its capital, Skopje, a
more classical appeal (Jordanovska,
2015). The government pumped around 560 million Euros worth of money
into statues in every single place possible as well as other renovations to
buildings to make the city look more classical (Jordanovska, 2015). There were no public announcements
for the costs of these additions, but an estimate was created by an
investigation of government documents and audits (Jordanovska, 2015). This as well as angry residents being
unable to recognize their city, and the choices of some of the statues caused
much controversy throughout Macedonia. There was one in particular --- Andon
Kyoseto – that caused the most controversy as he was labeled a terrorist and
mass executioner (Dimchev, n.d.).
There were additionally many statues borrowing from Greece’s claimed history:
Alexander the Great, and Phillip II of Macedon. In 2018, the Andon Kyoseto
statue was taken down, and many others related to Greek heritage were renamed,
and marked with inscriptions of Greek-Macedonian friendship (Dimchev, n.d.). This was in
preparation for a likely deal with Greece that has since come to fruition.
Macedonia
locked up the 2017 protesters of the ethnic Albanian speaker of Parliament, and
for many years at that (“Heavy Sentences”, 2019). This makes a statement about
the inclusion of Albanians within Macedonian society. This makes it obvious
that the court system will not tolerate persecution or discrimination of ethnic
Albanians and want to incorporate them fully into Macedonian society. With
ethnic tensions still not totally subsided post-civil war as discussed in blog
post 1, we can see that this is an active message saying that demonstrations of
these tensions will not be tolerated. Furthermore, examining this from another
country’s prospective looking it, it seems that Macedonia is making a statement
saying that it will allow for the persecution of minority groups. Tied together
with the recent addition of Albanian as an official language of North
Macedonia, it also appears that North Macedonia is giving the Albanians an
equal seat at the table. This is the only part of the Macedonian’s national
brand that does not align with the dominant national identity. As discussed in
the first blog post, many ethnic Macedonians still “other” Albanians living
within the country. As Albanian acceptance is not the leading idea in the
country, this one aspect of the nation brand is contrived.
One
last place that one would expect national branding to occur is with the new
name, North Macedonia. Though the name change to North Macedonia is a large event,
there has not been a large blow-back against the change. With exception of some
members of the Nationalist party boycotting the change, there have been no
large protests within North Macedonia, so it seems no Macedonians are
influenced enough by the name change to protest, so there is no need for North
Macedonia to “change their brand” to fit within that new name.
Examining
national branding as a whole, it appears Macedonia is attempting to show that
it shares some core characteristics with modern Western ideals: that it accepts
its minorities and aims to be friendly with neighboring countries. This brand
seems to align itself with what is seen within the Eurovision performances; however,
this only aligns with the dominant national identity to a point. In attempt to
appear like a Western nation North Macedonia is following the values of one. It
is unclear if either of these methods of nation branding are an attempt to win
some brownie points with the countries in the EU and NATO, a result from the
change in political parties in 2016 to a more liberal government, or a genuine
change of pace of the goals of the Macedonian government and people. Similarly
to with the Eurovision performances, this will not become clear until after
Macedonia has solidified its spot within NATO and the EU. However, it will be
interesting to watch the nation brand of Macedonia change or stay the same
after they are either accepted or rejected.
Pre-Sources Word Count: 1578
Reference
Dimchev, A. (n.d.). Macedonia Removes
the Skopje 2014 Statue of Andon Kyoseto. Retrieved from https://www.euscoop.com/en/2018/2/22/statue-removed-macedonia
Graan, A. (2016). The Nation
Brand Regime: Nation Branding and the Semiotic Regimentation of Public
Communication in Contemporary Macedonia. Signs and Society, 4(S1),
70-105. Retrieved from: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/684613
Heavy sentences handed down to North
Macedonia parliament attackers. (2019, March 19). Retrieved from: https://eu-ocs.com/heavy-sentences-handed-down-to-north-macedonia-parliament-attackers/
Jordanovska, M. (2015, July 25).
True cost of 'skopje 2014' revealed. Retrieved from: https://balkaninsight.com/2015/07/27/true-cost-of-skopje-2014-revealed/
Kaliopi.
(2016). Dona (FYR Macedonia). Eurovision
Song Contest 2016 Stockholm. Retrieved from: http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/eurovision-2016/eurovision-2016-semifinal-2-macedonia-kaliopi-defiende-tema-dona/3606645/
Nag, O. S. (2016, December 08).
Poorest countries in europe. Retrieved from: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-poorest-countries-in-europe.html
Participants (n.d.). Retrieved
from: http://www.logotv.com/eurovision-song-contest/participants
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