I am a 2003 baby and I grew up in Kumanovo, the third largest town in Macedonia, a 30 minute drive away from the Serbian border. Our dialect, heavily influenced by Serbian, is almost indistinguishable from the mannerisms spoken in many of the southern Serbian regions. Because of this, we were often called Serbs by Macedonians living in the west and south, as well as by many Serbians we met annually on vacation in Greece. My family proudly accepted this honorary title, as our news and entertainment consumption at the time was entirely Serbian. My grandmother still refers to our ‘brother Serbs’ whenever Serbia is mentioned.
A few months ago, I experienced a significant shift in my self-perception regarding my title of “Honorary Serb.” This change coincided with my growing awareness of how my Serbian-American college friends in the U.S. diaspora interacted with me. Unlike my previous experiences with individuals who shared a similar collective history and the deep-seated ‘Balkan syndrome’ of mutual understanding, these friends did not have that same background. The ‘Balkan syndrome’ refers to a complex web of shared trauma, resilience, and cultural nuances that bind the people of the Balkans together, often in ways outsiders might find difficult to comprehend. This shift in perspective became even more pronounced when the atrocities of Srebrenica once again drew international attention in light of the recent UN resolution.
Srebrenica, a town in Bosnia and Herzegovina, was the site of a horrific massacre in 1995, where over 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed by Bosnian Serb forces. This event, recognized as a genocide by international courts, has left a deep scar on the collective memory of the region. For me, the renewed focus on Srebrenica unearthed memories of the fractured dynamics of my childhood’s multiethnic environment. These were not just abstract conflicts but deeply personal interactions: the unspoken rules about who my parents allowed me to socialise with, who was deemed acceptable to date, who became the subject of political stigmatisation, who was considered “dirty”, and which coffee shops and bars were safe to visit. The massacre’s haunting legacy forced me to confront these ingrained biases and the way they shaped my sense of belonging, identity, and the very notion of community.
If there is something that can describe what I previously referred to as the Balkan syndrome of mutual understanding, it is Svetlana Boym’s simple definition of nostalgia. According to Boym, the nostalgic is never a native but a displaced person who mediates between the local and the universal. She states, ‘nostalgia is not merely an expression of local longing, but a new understanding of time and space that made the division between “local” and “universal” possible.’
As a Macedonian woman, I initially believed I had left behind the feeling of displacement the moment I decided to leave my hometown. Before coming to study in the U.S., my identity was divided between the emerging Macedonian identity—a product of the post-Yugoslav experience—and the broader, unavoidable sense of belonging to the Balkans. However, this feeling of displacement resurfaces every time I am labelled with honorary national titles—whether I seek them or not—such as Serbian, Bulgarian, or Greek. These labels make me question how different my experience might have been in a more equitable political climate, where the powerful and dominant nations did not overshadow the smaller ones. This conflict between belonging and displacement underscores the reality that my identity has been shaped, and often fragmented, by the political forces that define the Balkans. It is not that I rejected the idea of displacement; rather, I am constantly navigating it, as my identity is continuously spliced and redefined by the external forces that try to categorise me.
Academic discourse in the U.S. about the Western Balkan countries almost entirely revolves around political conflict and its scalability, impacts, and consequences. While these themes are no doubt important in the region, a deeper understanding requires engaging with people’s lived experiences and understanding the deeply rooted ‘why’ behind our historicities and identities. In high school, I once wrote a poem to commemorate the Macedonian soldiers who died in the 2001 insurgency. I remember thinking that an incredibly multiethnic home cannot sustain itself without multiculturalism.
From my lived experience, I spent 19 years in the public school system in my hometown without ever questioning thesegregation of Macedonians and Albanians. Everyone just assumed that the post-Yugoslav legacy of linguistic segregation between the two groups was simply the way things were – Muslims, mostly Albanians, and Orthodox Christians, mostly Macedonians, grew up in parallel worlds, sometimes only a couple of blocks apart. Most Albanians never learned to speak Macedonian and had their own schools, barbershops, coffee shops, bars, gyms, neighbourhoods, beliefs, systems, and ideas, rarely interacting with us. We, in turn, never made the effort to get close to them either.
I grew up years after Srebrenica, and I often heard the parents of my friends joking that ‘it’s better to be a lesbian than marry an Albanian or a Muslim.’ I witnessed this disgust firsthand at night when we would sit on the boulevard in my hometown as teenagers. The Albanian and Macedonian boys would always start a fight, someone would get stabbed, beaten, shot, or just verbally assaulted. I continue to see this hate spread easily in the hearts of many who left Macedonia and suddenly became patriots.
Many times I wish someone had told us about Srebrenica during those moments when we cursed each other in the street.There is no Balkan nation today that can thrive without adopting policies for the successful and full integration of its ethnic minorities and majorities. Within the current Balkan framework, the most outcast are the most marginalised people and communities whose multiple identities intersect with ethnicity. If it is better to be gay than marry a Muslim, the perception is that it is even worse to be a gay Muslim. Many have suffered because of this failure to create spaces of tolerance.
I often read about the lessons of Srebrenica being forgotten, but as a Macedonian woman, I realise they were never really taught to us in the first place. No matter how much we, the Gen Z kids of the Western Balkans, wished to adapt to a post-Srebrenica, post-2001, and post-2015 reality, we always eventually returned to our segregated religious and ethnic realities. The modern challenge after 2015 became joining the EU, and under this framework, everyone preached tolerance and called for immediate multiethnic cooperation. This only further eroded our confidence in each other and polarised our people as nothing this sensitive could ever be achieved immediately.
In 2021, I attended a multicultural podcast project in Tirana with Serb, Bosnian, Albanian, Kosovar, and fellow Macedonian youth. They sat us down and made us talk to each other. I remember thinking, ‘If only you sat down with my parents and grandparents and their grandparents—this story would’ve been very different.’ The youth is young everywhere except in the Western Balkans, where the mistakes of previous generations still encapsulate every aspect of our lives: our ability to get a job, earn a good education, secure a good salary, start a family, talk to each other, and contribute to society. Those who can leave – leave, and the polarisation continues as governments grapple with depopulation and brain drain.
The Serbian domestic discourse over the years against the 2024 UN Srebrenica Resolution and Srebrenica in general has largely been driven not only by political propaganda and erasure of history but also by a narrative that ‘we don’t do those things.’ This narrative is not purely Serbian but a story many tell themselves every day. Phrases like ‘We can’t know what truly happened,’ ‘It might have been a conflict, not a genocide,’ and ‘We don’t kill—they do,’ are things I hear and read about daily from well-meaning people who refuse to even look at the videos, photos, and stories all over the web.
This reluctance to acknowledge the Srebrenica massacre as genocide stems from a deep-seated fear of what such an admission would mean for Serbian national identity. Recognizing Srebrenica as genocide threatens to undermine the narrative of Serbian victimhood that has been carefully constructed over decades. It challenges the idea that Serbia was always on the defensive, never the aggressor, and forces a reckoning with a past that many would rather forget. For many Serbians, accepting the reality of Srebrenica is seen as a betrayal of national pride and a concession to international pressures that have long been viewed with suspicion and resentment. The discourse is problematic because it perpetuates a cycle of denial and historical revisionism, making it difficult for the country to come to terms with its past and move forward.
Learning about Srebrenica made me realise that my nineteen years of Macedonian education had not prepared me for it at all. A system in which I had to memorise the capital of every country in the world, yet failed to teach compassion for our complex heritage of pain and for those who suffered and survived to tell the tale, is a broken system.
To my fellow college students, to my parents, grandparents, and those still living in our homeland; to our leaders, including my mayor, Prime Minister, and the first female President; to all individuals, whether they belong to minority or majority ethnic communities; to the Serbian and Macedonian media that keep my high school-educated relatives informed; and to the Serbian, Macedonian, and other Balkan diasporas in the U.S.—all of you have a stake in this conversation.
My high school sociology teacher often repeated, ‘history is written by the victors.’ As a Gen Z individual connected to the Balkans, I find this perspective both simplistic and troubling. Today, ‘victors’ include not only those who prevailed in war but also those who shape narratives across global media platforms, which often spread polarising misinformation. This control influences public opinion, creating sharp divides, especially among Balkan youth. In this context, we must ask: whose version of history is dominant, and at what cost?
The dominant narrative—whether endorsed by the UN or other authorities—often claims a monopoly on truth. For instance, while the UN’s affirmation of Srebrenica as genocide acknowledges atrocities, some Serb nationalists argue this history reflects a pro-NATO or Western bias. Even if a dominant narrative is “correct” in certain respects, it’s worth asking if it serves a broader agenda, possibly overshadowing the profound human experiences of suffering and loss by simplifying complex tragedies.
Ultimately, shared human pain in the wake of genocide defies simplistic notions of victory. As someone from the Balkans, I feel these histories are not just records; they are embedded in our identities, reminding us of the silences within dominant narratives. The cost of this “victor’s history” is a failure to fully honour those who endured the pain. For me, understanding this tension isn’t about choosing sides but acknowledging the experiences that transcend imposed boundaries.
Image Credit: Magdalena Otterstedt/Upsplash