
The Imaginative Gentleman Don Zaev de la Murtino
I wanted to be faithful to the original title of perhaps one of the most famous pieces of literature ever written, The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes, but I threw up a little bit when I left the word “gentleman” in my own title, above. Zoran Zaev certainly does not meet the definition of “gentilman” a twelfth century Middle English word which means “a man whose conduct conforms to a high standard of propriety or correct behavior.” On top of that, I could not bring myself to use “ingenious” to describe Zaev, though “imaginative” certainly works, and works well.
But I’m getting ahead of myself here.
In an interview with Euronews the last week of October and, perhaps fittingly, right before Halloween, Zaev compared his fight over the past two years to change Macedonia’s name and identity and to fundamentally change every single thing about Macedonia (as he basically states in the interview) to the various fights and adventures of the seventeenth century fictional adventurer, Don Quijote. His exact quote, allowing for his spotty English, is “(It’s) probably (like) Don Quijote’s fight — we are continuing.”
This really is astonishing and the man is not very bright. That fact has been well documented. But he does have a well-oiled public relations machine to do his bidding and they do their work quite well. But they cannot always control what their boss says. And in this case, what their boss said was, well, cringe-worthy.
It would appear that Zaev has never read Don Quijote. It also appears that he has never even read a summary of the book, nor learned the basic facts about Don Quijote. Now, it has been at least ten years since I read the book, so my memory is a little bit fuzzy but with the aid of the Google Machine and the Interwebs, it is a rather simple task to sum up a few basic facts about the man from la Mancha.
First, he read many works about noble knights and their adventures.
Second, he goes insane.
Third, he goes on multiple adventures in an attempt to emulate those knights and their adventures.
Fourth, towards the end of his life, he recovers from his insanity and apologizes for his misadventures.
Finally, he dies.
Again, we are describing a character from fiction here, but Zaev made the comparison. So, by all means, let’s compare. Starting with the insanity.
Harold Bloom, the American literary critic, writes that “Cervantes never tells us explicitly why Alonso Quijano (Quijote’s real name) was first driven to craze himself by reading chivalric romances, until at last he went out upon the roads to become Don Quijote…he has only one vice: he is an obsessive reader of the popular literature of the day, which crowds reality out of his mind.” The comparisons, it seems, write themselves. Don Zaev’s one vice? He believes that by fundamentally changing every single thing about Macedonia, he can usher Macedonia into peace and prosperity and he believes all those who told him in so many words “Once we help you by placing you in power, just do this one little thing — change Macedonia’s name with one little word — and then we will heap praises on you and bring Macedonia into the EU.” Zaev obsessed on this — he still obsesses on this to this day stating ad nauseum, “there is no alternative” while others are now saying “actually, there are alternatives.” Zaev believed the diplomats, the elected officials, the unelected officials the think tanks, the mainstream media, the civil society crowd and many others who told him “You are the chosen one.” And so he has gone mad in the process.
Like Don Quijote, Don Zaev needs a love interest. And Zaev’s love interest has been a “sexy lady,” as he calls the European Union. Don Quijote felt a need to engage in acts of daring to win over his lady and like Don Quijote, Zaev feels the need to engage in acts of daring to win over the love of his “sexy lady”; thus begin Zaev’s adventures. Zaev’s acts of daring adventure have been to force through a fundamental change of Macedonia’s name, identity, culture, history, heritage, and much else that makes Macedonia unique. He literally took former EU Commissioner for enlargement Johannes Hahn at his word when Hahn told him to “use Balkan tactics” to push the changes through parliament, hence Zaev’s imagination in using threats, intimidation, bribes and who knows what else in his adventures.
And Zaev is a man with obsessed with continuing those changes. As he tells the interviewer, “[the] Prespa Agreement achievement until now has been huge, we changed everything in the country. We changed all boards in the public institutions, monuments, boards with all our neighbours in the airports, documentation, websites, everything. And now we are in the process of changing our books in our schools because it’s [the] constitutional name now.”
He has no regard for reality and definitely no regard for what the majority of Macedonians want — to keep their name and identity and everything else that makes Macedonia and Macedonians unique in our world today. Zaev is a man obsessed with continuing his mad fight even when reality smacks him in the face.
Eventually, Don Quijote is defeated and brought home where he recovers, recants of his misadventures and then passes away. As to the future of Don Zaev and the questions of will he recover from his insanity, and will he repent of his misadventures, well, that remains to be seen. As a betting man, I would bet that he does not recover or repent. His ego is just too big to allow him to do either.
