Changing face of Prespa

Changing face of Prespa. Local and inter/national initiatives in the context of revival of trilateral Prespa region

Abstract
The history of the Prespa Region has been long and rich, filled with various cultural, social, and, above all political changes, that largely influenced the life of the local population, which is divided between three neighboring countries: North Macedonia, Albania and Greece. Based on the above, Prespa region can be considered a highly sensitive area that evokes various common links between the population in the trilateral region causing significant “political” disparities in many aspects. However, the initiatives and changes undertaken in the past few decades enabled various re/shaping of each integral part of Prespa. Yet they are based on the national policies of every distinctive country. Through this paper, I will try to give a short overview of Prespa’s “changing face” through some of the historical and contemporary events and also present some of the national, or bilateral initiatives undertaken within the framework of EU cross border cooperation and other programs. Archival researches have been conducted to provide necessary information, and comparative analysis of some materials have been done. Much of the data presented is a result of in-depth qualitative ethnographic researches conducted especially about the Macedonian-Albania border, which provided essential and relevant data not only for the past decades and personal experiences, but also for the changes that occurred by the end of the 20th century till nowadays. The paper also considers a few cross-border projects as case studies to elaborate on the importance of joint actions.