Здраво! Merhaba! Γειά σου! Hello!
I am Nikola Kajmakoski, a current graduate student within Loyola University Chicago’s History Department. As a first-generation Macedonian-American, my academic interests lie within the Balkans and Turkey, exploring themes of nationalism, identity, and state power. With both parents immigrating to the United States from the former Yugoslavia, Macedonian culture, history, language, and religion have played important roles in my life. Admittedly, the diaspora can be quite the nationalistic environment, especially pertaining to history. Recognizing this, my research is shaped by my desires to reconcile my diasporic identity as both an American and Macedonian. Blending together American and Macedonian traditions of pluralism, central to my own Macedonian-American consciousness is a belief that such an identity exists within a shared and wider Balkan, or Rumelian, identity and history.