Grandparents’ World War Two (WWII) stories are emotionally powerful, intimate accounts of firsthand experience that can shape grandchildren's ideas of state history, nation, and identity. This effect, I argue, manifests most intensively in critical times when national history and identity are threatened. Such was the case when former Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev relayed a controversial version of Macedonian national history and identity in a TV interview. In reaction, many Macedonian citizens shared fragments of their grandparents’ WWII stories. This study analyzes several more detailed versions of these grandparents’ narratives in order to ascertain the formative power of family WWII stories over one's personal sense of national identity. To do so, it will examine the positioning practices of the present-day narrators, the grandchildren of WWII participants, focusing on the manners in which they interactively reproduce their own sense of national identity vis-a-vis-these stories.

中文翻译：

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“祖父被保加利亚人治死1”：家庭叙事、民族认同和国家历史

祖父母的第二次世界大战 (WWII) 故事是情感强大的、对第一手经历的亲密描述，可以塑造孙辈对国家历史、民族和身份的看法。我认为，这种影响在国家历史和身份受到威胁的关键时刻表现得最为强烈。前马其顿总理佐兰·扎耶夫 (Zoran Zaev) 在接受电视采访时转述了一个有争议的马其顿国家历史和身份认同版本，情况就是如此。作为回应，许多马其顿公民分享了他们祖父母的二战故事片段。本研究分析了这些祖父母叙述的几个更详细的版本，以确定家庭二战故事对一个人的个人民族认同感的形成力量。为此，它将考察当今叙述者的定位实践，