Past in Question

<p>This book examines the relationship between national history identity and politics in twentieth-century Macedonia. It focuses on the reverberating power of events surrounding an armed uprising in August 1903 when a revolutionary organization challenged the forces of the Ottoman Empire by seizing control of the mountain town of Krusevo. A century later Krusevo is part of the Republic of Macedonia and a site for yearly commemorations of 1903. In the course of the intervening hundred years various communities have vied to establish an authoritative account of what happened in 1903--and to weave those events into a longer and wider narrative of social cultural and national evolution. <p/> Keith Brown examines how Krusevo's residents refugees and exiles have participated--along with scholars journalists artists bureaucrats and politicians--in a conversation about their vexed past. By tracing different approaches to understanding commemorating and narrating the events of 1903 he shows how in this small mountain town the magic of nationalism by which destiny is written into particular historical events has neither failed nor wholly succeeded. Stories of heroism self-sacrifice and unity still rub against tales of treachery score settling and disaster as people come to terms with the legacies of imperialism socialism and nationalism. The efforts of Krusevo's successive generations to transcend a past of intercommunal violence reveal how rival claims to knowledge and truth acquire vital significance during rapid social economic and political change.</p>