“Just like in any national movement, in the Macedonian likewise, there are historical characters who are universally regarded as positive and then there are some who are part of the same corpus, but who due to some of their actions or leanings, are marred with controversy or deemed unacceptable by some,” he told BIRN.

“If you sit and ask Macedonian and Albanian historians about these issues, they will each come out with arguments supporting their own side and ethno-centric views,” said Litovski. “But there is almost no effort to bring these two narratives closer together.”

“Admittedly, that is going to be very hard, especially now when politics, for its own reasons, tends to hold a monopoly on memorialisation of history, and is the loudest voice that people hear.”