The New Macedonian Question: the Current Stage of Development

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the current state of the New Macedonian question. Authors examine two treaties that seemed to settle the New Macedonian question: The 2017 Treaty of Friendship, Good-neighborliness and Cooperation between Macedonia and Bulgaria, and the 2018 Prespa agreement signed by the representatives of Macedonia and Greece. The successful negotiations that resulted in the signing of these international agreements have raised a diffi cult question for researchers, which can be formulated as follows: what is the current stage of development of the New Macedonian Question? Does this problem belong to history or current international relations? The main goal of the work is a detailed analysis of the two above-mentioned treaties in the context of their impact on the New Macedonian question. Authors attempted not only to examine the two treaties separately, but also to place these documents in the broader context of extremely contradictory international relations on the Balkan Peninsula, and to show the mutual infl uence of various aspects of the New Macedonian question as the complex problem of international relations. The article has a scientifi c value since the Prespa agreement and the Treaty of friendship have not yet been properly examined in the scientifi c literature, despite the wide coverage in the media. The article proves the thesis that two treaties did not settle the New Macedonian question and only led to the creation of new problems related to the independent Macedonian state. The serious unilateral concessions made by the Macedonian leadership to resolve the name dispute, the freezing of the historical dispute with Bulgaria, and the continued distrust between the Macedonians and Albanians after the Ohrid agreement do not give grounds to speak of a successful solution of the New Macedonian question.