It would be misleading to overlook the ubiquitous impact of the Balkan Peninsula in any viable assessment of identity claims both local and continental since 1919. On the contrary, it is indispensable to look back, time and again, to the set of watershed moments that reconfigured the map of the former Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman realms, as adjudicated in Paris in the wake of the “Great War” by illustrious representatives of the victorious allied powers. On the table is the key issue of artificial borders instated largely in ignorance, and as a rule, with impunity: a cause as frequently alienated from its effects, as its effects are orphaned from their original cause. Tantamount to the finalization of the Treaty of Versailles, yet constituting a multitude of subsidiary negotiations, the Paris convention ultimately enforced a Mardi Gras of international border fabrications that mirrored the most persuasive territorial claims of those who commanded either the best of luck, or the greatest influence over the reigning authorities. What still needs to be acknowledged to bridge the gap between the violence that accompanied the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 90s and the threat of border violence in 2018 – as exemplified by the Macedonian question that ought to have been settled long long ago – is the fallacy of the concept of “self-determination,” promulgated by Woodrow Wilson as a quantitative metric for the dissemination of lasting peace. It may not yet be too late to quiet volatile borders through the restoration of stature to influential minorities.
Keywords: political identities; nations; borders; inclusion; exclusion; self-determination.
