Ivan Nikolovski

Junior Visiting Fellowship in the cluster "Cultural memory and cultural heritage in Europe in the context of digital transformation"

Numerous studies on memory politics in Europe rarely include thorough analyses of the European Union’s enlargement process. While there is a handful of studies on enlarging Europe by memory by older and newer Member States, little has been written about the role of candidate countries in this regard. This project aims to fill this gap by turning my PhD dissertation, which explores how mnemonic enlargement relates to the actual enlargement process, how mnemonic enlargement shapes narratives of belonging during accession, and how these narratives, in return, affect the EU’s politics of memory, into a book proposal. Instead of approaching expansion through memory as a process that occurs only within the EU, the manuscript will analyze it as one that unfolds simultaneously in the candidate countries. While the dissertation focuses on mnemonic enlargement against the background of Bulgaria-North Macedonia memory wars, the monograph aims to broaden the analysis through comparison with other case studies, both within and beyond the Western Balkans. More specifically, the transformation of the PhD dissertation into a book proposal will draw on the experiences of the post-Yugoslav republics and Ukraine, with an ultimate goal of offering a comprehensive theoretical framework for studying expansion Europe through memory in candidate countries.