Yugoslav Communism And The Macedonian Question

The Macedonian Question - the struggle for control over a territory with historically ill-defined borders and conflicting national identities - is one of the most intractable problems in modern Balkan history. In this lucid and persuasive study, Dimitris Livanios explores the British dimension to the Macedonian Question from the outbreak of the Second World War to the aftermath of the Tito-Stalin split. Investigating British policy towards the Bulgar-Yugoslav controversy over Macedonia, the author assesses the impact of British actions and strategy during this period, with a particular focus on wartime planning concerning the future of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, and attempts to prevent Tito from creating a federation of the South Slavs, both during and after the war. Making extensive use of British archives, Livanios brings to light important documentary evidence to offer a fresh perspective on the emergence of the federal Macedonian unit within Tito's Yugoslavia, and on the efforts to create a functioning Macedonian national ideology.

Held together by apparatchiks and, later, Tito's charisma, Yugoslavia never really incorporated separate Balkan nationalisms into the Pan-Slavic ideal. Macedonia - frequently ignored by Belgrade - had survived centuries of Turkish domination, Bulgarian invasion and Serbian assimilation before it became part of the Yugoslav project in the aftermath of the First World War. Drawing on an extensive analysis of archival material, private correspondence, and newspaper articles, Nada Boskovska provides an arresting account of the Macedonian experience of the interwar years, charting the growth of political consciousness and the often violent state-driven attempts to curb autonomy. Sketching the complex picture of nationalism within a multi-ethnic, but unitarist state through a comprehensive analysis of policy, economy, and education, Yugoslavia and Macedonia before Tito is the first book to describe the uneasy and often turbulent relationship between a Serbian-dominated government and an increasingly politically aware Macedonian people. Concerned with the question of integration and political manipulation, Boskovska gives credence to voices critical of Royal Yugoslavia and offers a fresh insight into domestic policy and the Macedonian question, going beyond traditional high politics. Broadening the spectrum of discussion and protest, she reveals the voices of a people protesting constitutional and electoral fraud, the neglect of local needs and state machinations designed to create a satellite province.

This book is a comprehensive and dispassionate analysis of the intriguing Macedonian Question from 1878 until 1949 and of the Macedonians (and of their neighbours) from the 1890s until today, with the two themes intertwining. The Macedonian Question was an offshoot of the wider Eastern Question – i.e., the fate of the European remnants of the Ottoman Empire once it dissolved. The initial protagonists of the Macedonian Question were Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia, and a Slav-speaking population inhabiting geographical Macedonia in search of its destiny, the largest segment of which ended up creating a new nation, comprising the Macedonians, something unacceptable to its three neighbours. Alexis Heraclides analyses the shifting sands of the Macedonian Question and of the gradual rise of Macedonian nationhood, with special emphasis on the Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian claims to Macedonia (1870s–1919); the birth and vicissitudes of the most famous Macedonian revolutionary organization, the VM(O)RO, and of other organizations (1893–1940); the appearance and gradual establishment of the Macedonian nation from the 1890s until 1945; Titos’s crucial role in Macedonian nationhood-cum-federal status; the Greek-Macedonian name dispute (1991–2018), including the ‘skeletons in the cupboard’ – the deep-seated reasons rendering the clash intractable for decades; the final Greek-Macedonian settlement (the 2018 Prespa Agreement); the Bulgarian-Macedonian dispute (1950–today) and its ephemeral settlement in 2017; the issue of the Macedonian language; and the Macedonian national historical narrative. The author also addresses questions around who the ancient Macedonians were and the fascination with Alexander the Great. This monograph will be an essential resource for scholars working on Macedonian history, Balkan politics and conflict resolution.