Paper short abstract:

This paper foregrounds the public side of art manifested through two art festivals and their critical role in producing and disseminating the ideologies of "multiculturalism" and "national archaism" in the contemporary republic of Macedonia.

Paper long abstract:

By following Adorno's (1970) argument that art is always contingent and rooted in the social conditions of the system where it emerges, this paper foregrounds the public side of art manifested through two art festivals and their critical role in producing and disseminating the ideologies of "multiculturalism" and "national archaism" in the contemporary republic of Macedonia. By examining the Ohrid Summer Festival and the Struga Poetry Evenings, I underscore the construction of boundaries that delineate the symbolic "beginning" and "end" of Europe, antiquity, and Christianity. I assess the ways in which these events forcefully emphasize the ancient and "biblical" character of the town of Ohrid in particular, and the Republic of Macedonia in general, by drawing primarily on its antique and Christian (Byzantine) architectural legacy. By analyzing these two festivals, I contend that art and festivals are not only contingent and rooted in the social conditions, but also become battlegrounds where the ideologies of inclusion and exclusion are produced and disseminated in the wider political and popular discourses of the Republic of Macedonia and Europe.