Macedonian Ministers Lost for Words in Language Row

Macedonian government building | Photo by: Balkan Insight

Macedonia's Education and Labour ministers, Pance Kralev and Spiro Ristovski, have drawn protests after urging the country's main university, Sts Cyril and Methodius, to stop teaching Macedonian linguistics for several years because there is no need for such graduates on the market.

Professors and students at the university, in Skopje, and the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, MANU, have all condemned the idea.

At a time when Macedonia's language and identity are threatened by neighbouring states, undermining the department that acts as the central hub for Macedonian language studies is unthinkable, they say.

“The Macedonian language and culture are of national interest and they must not be treated as market categories,” Violeta Piruze, a professor of philology at Skopje University, said.

Joint research conducted by the two ministries from January to September concluded that Macedonia had a shortage of math professors, engineers and IT experts.

The study also concluded that Macedonia had more than enough Macedonian language professors, economists, lawyers and civil servants than it can usefully employ.

The ministers advised university faculties generally to increase quotas of natural science students and reduce numbers studying other subjects to meet the demands of the market.

The education ministry on Wednesday told Balkan Insight that the ministers' words on Macedonian language studies were suggestions, not a final decision. They said that they remained open to other ideas.

But experts in Macedonian studies say they are still shocked that the idea emerged in the first place.

“There can be a shortage of bread, electricity and water in Macedonia but Macedonian Language studies cannot be cut. It would be like having no sugar in a cake shop,” Venko Andonovski, a Macedonian writer and professor at Skopje's Faculty of Philology, said.

In his column for the Nova Makedonija daily, Andonovski says it is wrong to cut Macedonian studies when the country’s language and identity are under threat from neighbouring countries.

He was referring to the long-standing dispute with Greece over Macedonia's name, to which Greece objects, and to Bulgaria's insistence that Macedonian is a dialect of Bulgarian.

The linguistics department of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, MANU, has also reacted.

“The government's move is absurd, dangerous and harmful for the future of the Macedonian studies as a national discipline," Zuzana Toplinjska, head of the language department at MANU, said.

"The Macedonian language department at the Skopje University is the world’s center for studying of the Macedonian language at all levels.”

Students of Philology have demanded an apology from the ministers and the abandonment of the idea.

“The Macedonian language studies are the strongest proofs for our existence and their suspension would inflict long-term harm on the nation and the country,” a protest letter reads.

Last month intellectuals and sportsmen and women collected signatures in defence of the Macedonian language and identity after the European Commission failed to use the term "Macedonian" in its report on the country, published in October.