Our goal with the website “2001.mk” is to present at one place as much information as possible about the war in Republic of Macedonia in 2001. We aim to make a substantial contribution towards the process of Dealing with the past regarding the war of 2001, to open up a space for different narratives, to encourage interethnic dialogue, to stimulate empathy towards the “others”, to prevent the painful past to be “swept under the rug” and then come back…
A central place on the website will have life stories, related to the experiences of various categories of citizens with the war in 2001. These stories were mainly being collected in places which were considered crisis regions during the war, but also by people who took active part in it in different ways. On the website you can also find some relevant documents from 2001, such as the Ohrid Framework Agreement, as well as information on important events from 2001. News articles from the press from 2001 will also be published on this website, as well as some research papers about the war.
Why dealing with the past?
The war of 2001 left deep wounds in Macedonian society. Even 24 years later, there is still a big interest about the war. The number of memorial monuments of the war of 2001 grows every year. And there is nothing surprising about it. The trauma from the war of 2001, being the first military conflict on the territory of Republic of Macedonia since 1944, is strong and the wounds still have not healed. Besides the impact of its presence in our memories, the war of 2001 prompted changes in the Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia, which caused an essential turnover in the conception of who are the bearers of rights, liberties and of the statehood of Republic of Macedonia. Moreover, the conflict that we are trying to deal with is still not over. The rhetoric that brings back the memories, events and interpretations from the time of that armed conflict is still present.
As mentioned above, life stories about 2001 will have a central part on the website. Peace Action works actively on collecting life stories since 2008, and our database already contains about 200 stories so far. On this website, we will progressively publish all the stories collected so far, as well as those that we will collect in the future.
In 2017 Peace Action began with the project of digitalization of news articles related to the war, published in the press in the Republic of Macedonia in 2001, as well as in the period right after. That is a lengthy process, and our goal is to publish these articles on our website, so that they would be made available to the public.