This study reviews the language policies and ideologies of the Republic of
Macedonia in the course of four different periods: 1) the period of
pluralistic language policies during the country’s participation in the
Yugoslav Federation (1944–1980), 2) the period of the shift towards
centralistic language policies during the political and economic crises in
the Yugoslav Federation (1981–1990), 3) the first decade of the country’s
independence when it exhibited further centralistic tendencies (1991–2001),
and 4) the period of armed conflict in the country and its renewed focus on
pluralistic language policies in the aftermath of conflict (2001 – today).
The study particularly examines the escalation of the language policy
conflict between the largest ethnic groups in the country, Macedonians and
Albanians. It traces the tendencies in the development of the language
policies and the respective ideologies that fuelled the armed conflict
between the state and the Albanian insurgents in 2001, as well as the policy
choices the state opted for in order to move the conflict from the battlefield
back to the political debate. In order to achieve its goal, the study analyses
the constitutional and other legal provisions as regards language minorities
and their language rights, as well as the ideologies the state had evolved to
justify its choice of policy in the course of different periods. It examines the
discourses of “equality” and “national unity” as a rationale for the
inclusion or exclusion of the minority languages from the public domain,
with illustrative examples of the impact the policies exhibited with regard to
the access to mother tongue education for the linguistic minorities.