The Echoes of Diplomatic Disputes. The Macedonian Question in the Work of Serbian and Yugoslav Music Scholars

Abstract

As the Great Eastern Crisis was approaching in the mid-1870s, the conflicting political interests of neighboring Balkan peoples started to manifest. Claiming primacy over the same territory of the Ottoman Empire and its inhabitants in their mutually excluding national projects, political elites of the Balkans initiated longstanding political and diplomatic struggles that did not lose intensity over the course of time. The so-called Macedonian Question became one of the most important points of dispute between the countries of this part of Europe at the time, imposing itself as an almost insurmountable obstacle in the relations between Serbian and Bulgarian elites since the second half of the 19th century. The end of the Second Balkan War (1913), and even more so the Great War with the Treaty of Neuilly between the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (SCS) and the Kingdom of Bulgaria (1920) did not bring a stabilization of the political situation in the region. On the contrary, the fact that the territory of Vardar Macedonia was recognized as part of the newly founded Yugoslav Kingdom fueled fierce reactions of the Bulgarian side throughout the interwar period.