The USSR and the problem of Northern Epirus at the Paris Peace Conference of 1946

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of an important problem of the territorial affiliation of Northern Epirus at the Paris Peace Conference of 1946 and the role of Soviet diplomacy in its solution. The interests of Greece, Albania, the USSR and the Western powers in this region, the military and political-diplomatic confrontation of Greece, on the one hand, Albania, on the other, as well as the influence of the factor of the Soviet state in resolving the issue of Northern Epirus are considered. The purpose of this article is to study the national-territorial claims of Greece to Northern Epirus, which were discussed at the Paris Peace Conference. Based on the review of documentary archival materials in the course of the study, the author of the article came to the conclusion that in the process of resolving the issue of the status of Northern Epirus, Greece failed. The evaluation of the results of the efforts of the USSR government to protect the territorial integrity of Albania is given. The active participation of the USSR was aimed at maintaining peace in the region. Comparing the positions of the parties, the author shows the course of the political struggle around the adoption of final decisions on the status of Northern Epirus. The methodological basis of the research is the principles of historicism and consistency, which involve the consideration of phenomena and facts in their entirety and development in accordance with the conditions of a particular historical epoch. The principle of objectivity is also used. The relevance of the research problem is explained by the need to ensure the territorial integrity of states and the normalization of ethnic relations in them. The scientific novelty of the study consists in the fact that, based on the involvement of archival documentary materials, an attempt was made to study the question of the status of Northern Epirus in 1946 in the context of the approval of territorial changes after World War II. In the scientific literature, this problem has not been specifically posed in such a perspective until now.