The new Macedonian question

Abstract

All Balkan territorial disputes have their mythologies; that of the Macedonian question is that of the most bloody, complex and intractable of all, in a small peninsula already well burdened. But it was also the conflict that, perhaps more than any other, socialist Yugoslavia seemed to have superseded. So what gave rise to some of the most acute political turmoil of the inter-war period, particularly the recurrent Macedonian assassinations and bombings, seemed to have been ‘solved’ by Tito’s creation. It is in its way appropriate, then, that it is only with the final demise of Yugoslavia, symbolised by international recognition of the independent Croatian state, that the new Macedonian problem is emerging.

Originally published in International Affairs (London), vol. 68, no. 3 (1992) and is reproduced with permission.