Gligorov, a politician of virtue

Few days ago, Kiro Gligorov passed away. “Grandpa Kiro” (born 1917), once an anti-fascist freedom fighter (in the WW2), one of the founders of Yugoslav Macedonia in 1944, and a tenured Yugoslav politician, has served two terms as a president

Beijing air feels just like home

Seems like my hometown, Skopje, and the city where I currently live, Beijing, have more things in common than I originally thought. One apparent occurrence is that both are heavily polluted, with air quality at the hazardous level. Beijing to

Go East to feel West?

Life in China has brought about many novelties for me. However, one has been especially intriguing. In China, for the first time in my life, people see me as a Westerner, with all its pros and cons. Personally, throughout my

Bad news: Croatia appropriates Marco Polo. Good news: he might have not even been to China.

Finally, another bizarre symbolic conflict over historical figures. After having devoted a great deal of my time examining the Greco-Macedonian conflict over the narratives of ancient Macedonian origin, and the copyrights to the legacy of Alexander the Great [MA thesis,

There is a world beyond the Western Balkans

Today, there is an ever growing number of people originating from Southeast Europe, and especially from the Western Balkans countries, that complete their graduate studies abroad. Many of these future academics come from various fields in the social sciences and

The Norway atrocities as a turning point

In Breivik’s case, we have an obvious example of how anti-Islam, far right rhetoric inspires terror (the same goes for any extremist rhetoric). While it would be senseless to blame a whole political movement for the acts of an individual,