FYR of Macedonia/ 1. Historical perspective: cultural policies and instruments  

After the Second World War, Macedonia became part of the Yugoslav Federation, and therefore, its cultural policy was subject to the state ideology of building up a socialist culture. Over the past fifty years, cultural policy went through three main development stages:

• a centralist and state-run period which lasted from 1946 until the mid 1950s;
• a transitional period that lasted until 1974 and contained some elements of decentralisation; and
• from 1975 onwards, a phase of self-management began which defined national and municipal responsibilities for culture including decision making and funding.

After 1945, the role of the government in culture was vastly extended. New institutions were established, programmes were set up to train qualified staff to run these institutions and the culture and the arts were popularised. In the past, Macedonian culture hardly had an opportunity to flourish as its own national culture. It is therefore understandable that there was a certain amount of national and romantic spirit throughout this period.

Following a long period of strict centralism, Macedonia entered a period of self-management in the mid 1970s which offered the country certain opportunities to develop democratic elements, similar to that of other European countries. Municipal cultural institutions were created and were completely financed by the individual local communities (of which there were 31). While promising in theory, steps towards decentralisation became "suffocated" by bureaucratic incompetence, lack of professionalism and a thicket of regulations. In the 1990s, the cultural policy of independent Macedonia once again became politically and administratively centralised. The municipalities lost all the competencies they had gained in the field of culture.

There is no explicit cultural policy document which outlines a specific strategy and / or goals of cultural development, and therefore, one can hardly speak of a consistent cultural policy after 1990. The Constitution and the 1998 Law on Culture provided a certain global orientation toward culture including provisions for civil rights and freedoms, minority rights, the obligation of the government to support and develop culture, etc. However, in practice, there is still a combination of the old and new pragmatism and ad hoc temporary solutions. Today, the term culture is still equated with the term art.

Since 1945, Macedonia has been recognised as a multicultural country. The Ministry of Culture financed the activities of institutions such as the Theatre of Nationalities (Turkish and Albanian Drama, established in 1947), as well as several cultural associations (amateur and professional), vocal and dance folk groups, etc. Daily newspapers and weekly magazines, monthly children's magazines and radio and TV programmes were available in the respective languages of different cultural communities. Writers, artists, actors, musicians etc., of all the nationalities (Albanians, Turks, Serbs, Romans etc.) were members of the same professional associations together with the Macedonians.

After 1990, the once "homogeneous" society started to slowly disintegrate. It turned out that some communities (especially Albanian) were not satisfied with the overall cultural policy in the past or with state support and provisions for cultural minorities. Certainly, the process of democratisation has encouraged the communication of different views and perspectives, also with regard to the culture of minority communities. It has also helped to point out mistakes made in the past. For example, many private publishing companies were established (over 80% of them Albanian) in a very short period of time after 1990 in order to compensate for the lack of books in the languages of different minority groups. Numerous private radio and TV stations were opened and started to broadcast programmes in minority languages (most of them Albanian and Roma). Several new festivals were established to promote the culture of minority groups. Several new associations and NGOs started to work etc. The Ministry of Culture financially supported most of these activities (except radio and TV).

On the other hand, this approach led to almost complete cultural separation along ethnic lines such as the creation of a foundation for the Association of Albanian Publishers and Association of Albanian Writers. Demands were also made to split up the Theatre of Nationalities into an Albanian Theatre and Turkish Theatre etc.

The ethnic conflict in 2001 (re-)opened certain multicultural questions and the treatment of minority rights (primarily of the Albanian ethnic population) in the field of culture. Following the conflict and the institution of the Ohrid Framework Agreement, the Constitution was amended with some specific provisions for the different cultural communities (see also chapter 4.2.1). Some experts say that "the Ohrid Framework Agreement is a new vision for a Third Republic, which is to be radically different from the first one established with ASNOM (Antifascist Parliament of the Peoples Liberation of Macedonia) in 1944, and the second one, inaugurated with the Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia". It means specifically that the constitutional amendments from 2001 establish the citizens of Macedonia - the Macedonian people and parts of Albanian, Turkish, Serb, Roma, and Bosnian people living in Republic of Macedonia - as those adopting the Constitution. In this context, some experts say that Macedonia "should become the pilot-state of 21st century multiculturalism".