Post by ioan on Jan 24, 2011 10:02:48 GMT -5
Extract
Bulgaria - Serbia:
Opportunities and Problems before the
Neighbourly Relations. Civil Strategy
Bulgaria and Serbia lived in their relations a very prolonged 19th century. It continued throughout the whole 20th century up to year 2000. These typically Balkan relations were the permanent victim of three ailments - the ideological, geopolitical, and psychological one. In other words, of nationalism, elementary East European geopolitics (i.e. we can be in good relations only with nations we do not have a common border with), and of what experts called 'psychology of small differences' (we can least tolerate the ones closest to us).
The Bulgarian-Serbian relations fell into the trap of history. They had unavoidably to be made hostages of the serious dramas on the border between the 19th and 20th centuries - the disintegration of the European empires and the distribution of the 'disputable' territories among the newly established states. This problem only suffices to poison for decades ahead the relations between any two separate national communities. But combined with the above-described explosive Balkan 'mix', it brought a remarkable dose of disagreement, competition and hatred between the two nations so close in their mentality and history.
Therefore, the task of developing a civil strategy to put the Bulgarian-Serbian relations on normal footing is extremely difficult. Neither is it eased up, just the opposite - it is hindered, by the fact that Bulgarians and Serbs understand each other's languages, that they drink rakia and have similar notions about good and evil in life. Because the aim is not knowing each other - the problem lies exactly in knowing each other too well. The issue at hand is how to come to liking each other, or at least to tolerating each other. We are assigned the task of developing a European pragmatic strategy for solving problems in spite of the stereotypes, and in the face of persisting national ideologies.
We should not be deceived: the first years of the 21st century will not wipe out the 19th and 20th centuries all together. But a minimum program can be implemented. And this should be a program of normal civil, intellectual, and economic contacts, which will overcome the battles, monarchs, disputes, and will bring new meaning to a common history of almost 1000 years.
Historical background.
The peaks in the historical development of the Medieval Bulgarian and Serbian states mark a difference of 400 years. Bulgaria at the time of Simeon rules over wide Serbian territories, and Serbia at the time of Dusan - large Bulgarian
territories. Both Medieval states faced problems with their legitimacy as 'empires' in a contest with the only 'legitimate' empire - Byzantium; both of them became tsardoms under extraordinary circumstances, which has later provided arguments to challenge their 'empire' status. Similarities are found even in the biographies of the two greatest rulers - Simeon I, and Stefan Dusan - although centuries apart: both of them grew in Constantinople as hostages without any plausible chances to inherit the throne, and both made the impossible to get for the first time the tsar title for their countries, they both had the same final goal, which neither achieved - the throne in Constantinople. In their highest apogee, both Serbia and Bulgaria allow themselves to dream with an almost universe-wide ambition.
The ascent of any of the neighbouring tsardoms is inevitably related to the humiliation of the other. Ivan Vazov has wrathfully criticised a Serbian poet’s verse: “... íå ìîæå èñòîäîáíî /áëèñòàòè íà Áàëêàíà / è êðóíà Ñèìåóíà, / è ñêèïòàð Öàð Äóøàíà...”. But the truthfulness of this verse is proven by history: let us only compare Bulgaria under Boris I, Simeon and Petar (when the Serbian notables were summoned for security reasons to stay in Pliska and Preslav); and Serbia under Milutin, Stefan Dechanski and Dusan (when the Bulgarian notables from the conquered territories, on their part, joined the Serbian national elite).
The ups and downs from Bulgarian domination to Serbian one marked a culmination with the total victory of Stefan Dechanski over Michail Shishman in the Velbuzhd battle in 1330. Earlier, the Bulgarian domination found its semi-miraculous metaphore in the captivity of Prince Vladimir at Samuil’s court and his love affair with the Bulgarian ruler’s daughter - Kossara.
The official national ideologies put enormous effort exactly in exploiting of confrontation, disregarding the obvious examples of good neighbourly relations, co-operation, and common history. St. Sawa died and was burried and worshipped for a long time at Tarnovo; the Tarnovo Patriarch legalised Dusan’s tsar’s title, his grand-mother, mother, and wife were Bulgarians; Bulgarians fought for Lazar at Kosovo, and Serbs - for Petar Delyan against Byzantium; Grigorius Tsamblak and Konstantine Kostenecky wrote their most significant works in Serbia. The alphabet is the same, and in the past the orthographic rules as well as the languages themselves were similar to a much greater extent than presently. What beats everything else is the rivalry between the two Medieval states centered around the political issue of inheriting Byzantium, or at least which will be the second-rated tsardom after the Eastern Rome Empire.
The rivalry, discontinued from a short period of time by the Ottoman rule, grew again in the last century of Turkish domination. The Bulgarian and Serbian church, and later state authorities clash in a contest for the spiritual and political control over the controversial territories - Macedonia, the territories along Morava and Timok rivers. A curious, and at the same time macabre fact
is that the creators of the two national mythologies incessantly increase their claims - starting with the near-border territories, their appetites gradually grow to reach full absorption, total denunciation of their neighbour’s right to exist at all. The mid and end 19th century mark the peak in the natiuonal phantasies and mythomania: some Serbian scientiests (like Milos Miloevic) openly declare that ‘true Serbs’ live in the territories to Tarnovo, and Serbs turned Bulgarian - to the Black Sea. And some Bulgarian scientists (Dimiter Rizov among them) outline fictitious borders of Bulgaria to the Sawa River, look for remnants of Bulgarian dialects in Smederevo, and print maps on which Belgrade existed as ‘Alba Bulgarica’.
Put together, these theories are ridiculous. However, the representatives of the one community that are interested in the view point of the other are very few. The ice age in our relations started with the absurd Serbo-Bulgarian War (Slivnitsa in the Bulgarian memory corresponds to Velbuzhd in the Serb one), and ends with the First and the Second World Wars, and the Cold War into which Bulgaria and Serbia (Yugoslavia) were members of hostile configurations, or at the most allied configurations in cold relations. The unrecoverable happened, literally rivers of blood were flowing between the two people, and each nation knows only ‘its own river’. The Toplich uprising and the village of Boinik speak nothing to a Bulgarian, as the village of Garvan and the fate of people like Dimiter Gjuzelev ring no bell in Serbia. Nobody wants to know about the other party’s dead, everybody is intensively counting his own. The inconvenient opposite point of view has been spared in the history textbooks, in the political analyses, even in the memories of the dramatis personae. The facts, however, are staggering: a King, a Prime Minister, a state and party leader of the highest rank, tens of intellectuals, and tens of thousands of ordinary people die in, in relation to, and as a result of these bilateral relations.
An important part of the analysis can be devoted to the subject of the ideologies as a) a reason, b) an excuse for the Bulgarian-Serbian rivalry continuing through the centuries. This is the classical example - if Bulgaria is in one ideological block, Bulgaria would be in the other. The two countries often mask their rivalry behind global ideas and adherences.
- 1914-41 - Germanophile Bulgaria agains Francophile Serbia;
- 1949-87 - self-governing and Tito’s Yugoslavia against the Bulgaria practicing real socialism;
- 1989-2000 - the Bulgaria of democratic changes against Serbia of Milosevic.
But even when they are in the same ideological context, Bulgaria and Serbia are again competing: from this point of view, there were curious relations between Ljoticevtsi, and Nedichevtsi on the one hand, and the Bulgarian pro-fascist elements - on the other, the relations between Dimitrov and Tito in the period 1945-49; the relations between Bulgaria and democratic Serbia after 2000.
The common ideology cannot stop, and the differing ideology cannot fully explain the eternal historic competition between Bulgarians and Serbs. A characteristic episode: before 1985-7, the official and unofficial Yugoslavian propaganda proved its righteousness as regards the Bulgarian state policy by ‘western’ arguments - free travel, Muslim’s rights, American films, imported jeans, Mini-Max, Lepa Brena, politicians well accepted in the West, a basketball dream team. After 1990, the same arguments were used by the Bulgarians against the Serbs - free travel, Muslims' rights, American films, imported jeans, Slavi Trifonov, politicians well accepted in the West, the football dream team of 1994. The opposite argument - the party defending itself, has also been changed - the East, the Slav cause, family roots, Russia, the spirit against matter, etc. were quoted by Bulgarian propaganda in the ‘70-ies, and later by the Serbian one - in the ‘90-ies. What is funny here is the small time difference, i.e. the same people, implementing willingly or unwillingly propaganda goals were using both types of agruments - first, insisting how nice it was to be ‘pro-west oriented’, and then - how nice it was to be pro-east oriented, and then changing roles. Far more important than the ideological consequence was the assertion ‘We are better off than you, because ...”.
Indicative of the dubious meaning of block belonging is the fact of the strong influence of French culture on Germanophile Bulgaria, and German culture on Francophile Serbia. 0 We find interesting proofs in the language, in the translation of foreign words - the Bulgarian intelligentsia preferred the French word for asparagus, while the Serb one used the German one - ‘spargli’. As it has often happended in the Balkans, loyalties are ambiguous, bridges do not join together, they separate.
The geopolitical framework and the dominating ideology are both a reason and a pretext for the troubled relations between Bulgaria and Serbia. How do these relations look like today, however? Let us face the facts from the two viewpoints - of the problems and of the opportunities, the pessimistic and the optimistic analysis.
Relations between Bulgaria and Serbia Today. Problems.
Contemporary relations between Bulgaria and Serbia are the direct outcome of the above-described ‘east-west’ exchange of roles in the early ‘90-ies, followed by a partial restoration of the status quo in 2000.
The time of government of the Serbian (later Yugoslavian) President Slobodan Milosevic drifted Serbia away from its position of the most prospective East European candidate for the European Community, and drove it into the geopolitical spehere of influence of Russia and China, towards partnership with the political regimes in Iraq and Belaruss. In the meantime, Bulgaria, which met 1989 with the reputation of the staunchest Soviet satelite and a country of human rights violations, started slowly into the opposite direction - to active membership in the Partnership for Peace, an invitation for NATO
membership, and the onset of negotiations for accession to the European Union. The opposite directions of movement turned into the main reason for the chill in the intergovernmental relations, and resulted in practice in freezing the relations in the cultural, economic, and even in the inter-personal sphere.
It is important to note that the border from concealed to open hostility has never been passed. In the period 1990-1997, Zhelyu Zhelev, Bulgarian President at that time, and all Bulgarian political parties declared themselves categorically against any intervention by Bulgaria or other neighbouring countries in the national affairs of Yugoslavia. At the same time, the efforts by the government team in Belgrade to be liked in Bulgaria never stopped. It was partially successful in these at the time of the government of the socialist Prime Minister Jan Videnov (1994-1997), who met with Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade, and some books by Mira Markovic and Radovan Karadjic were published in Bulgaria, and part of the Bulgarian intellectual, economic, political and journalist elite openly sympathised with the Serbian cause maintaining intensive contacts with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
This intermission ended when the government of the United Democratic Forces (1997-2001) headed by Ivan Kostov, came into power. As early as the fist meeting between Kostov and Milosevic on the island of Crete arranged within the framework of a joint Balkan forum, set the tone for personal relations which could be defined in short as mutual contempt. Bulgaria became one of the greatest regional critics of Milosevic, and in the rhethorics of official Belgrade, the Bulgarian authorities were allotted the inauspicious role of servents to the West, and traitor of their own people. Issues like the situation of the Bulgarians in Yugoslavia on the one hand, and on the other - the memories of the actions taken by the Bulgarian army and police in Serbian territory at the time of the First and Second World Wars were evoked with a new asperity. Each attempt made by Bulgaria to play any intermediatory or at least active role on the Kosovo issue was indignantly rejected.
The culmination in the deteriorated relations came at the time of the Kosovo crisis and bombings of Yugoslavia in the spring and summer of 1999. Bulgaria's categorical position in support of NATO, and particularly the decision to provide a corridor for Alliance aircraft for actions against targets in Yugoslavia reverberated so painfully in Yugoslavia, that the nuances in the Bulgarian position were not perceived at all. It is not clear that the Serbian community was aware of the following: Bulgaria's refusal to accept Kosovo refugees, the in-principle condemnation of the war and of KLA extremism, the intensified relations with Montenegro; the fact that the Bulgarian air was not used intensively, and finally - the attempt made by Prime Minister Kostov to hear both sides in Kosovo, defending the Kosovo Serbs' right to stay in their own land. (It should be noted here, that not only the KLA leader Hasim Tachi, but also the leaders of Kosovo Serbs - Bishop Artemije and Momcilo Trajkovic were well met in Sofia.) In the meantime, the trial of the war became also a trial
of the Bulgarian society, which went through dramatic collisions on the pro- and anti-NATO issue. In spite of the victory of the pro-NATO line in Bulgaria and the start of negotiations with EU (which was accepted as a reward for Sofia's unequivocal position) these collisions played their role in the changes in the Bulgarian political landscape later.
Slobodan Milosevic's fall from power on October 5, 2000 warmed to a certain extent the relations between Bulgaria and Serbia. Both the changed geopolitical circumstances and the personal relations of people that until recently were Serbia's opposition leaders in Sofia where they could always rely on assistance, were of key importance for this. A clear signal for this warming up were the visits of Zoran Djindjic (still in his capacity of a Chairman of the Democratic Party), the Yugoslavian Foreign Minister, Goran Svilanovic, and the Speaker of the Yugoslavian Parliament, Dragoljub Micunovic to Bulgaria and the bilateral meetings of the Bulgarian President Peter Stoyanov with his Yugoslavian counterpart - Vojislav Kostunica in Nis and Skopje. The calendar of visits does not end at that. It covers the intentions expressed by the present President of Bulgaria - Georgi Parvanov.
The framework of improving relations is clear - integration in the European and North Atlantic structures, the Stability Pact, economic and infrastructure co-operation (the Sofia-Nis freeway, the cleansing of the Danube river from the debris), new climate in the attitude to the Bulgarian minority. Nevertheless, we may not talk about perfect relations between the two countries and communities. Here are at least four underwater controversies, which have reverberated only within the close analyst circles, but which have dispersed the myth of the 'cloudless skies' in the bilateral relations from now on:
• Some declarations of the Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic of a common area of integration in the South Eastern Europe which would later accede en bloc the European Union, were not sympathetically accepted in Bulgaria. Leading Bulgarian representatives hurriedly declared themselves against the 'Balkan format', and against European integration 'at the speed of the slowest' - ideas which would obliterate the Bulgarian Euro-Atlantic advantage. In the same way Belgrade met the ambition voiced by Bulgaria 'for a leading role on the Balkans'. And another statement almost mirroring it: in the autumn of 2002, Miroljub Labus was leading his candidate president campaign under the motto 'Serbia - Leader on the Balkans'. It was the Bulgarians' turn to be scandalised.
• The Controversy if the Stability Pact should be predominantly channelled only to the recovery of FR Yugoslavia or to compensate as a priority some neighbouring countries outlined various ambitions and strategies.
• Bulgaria and Serbia declared aspirations to compete in attracting foreign investments. At the same time, when the then Bulgarian President Peter Stoyanov wrote to and received letters from Bill Gates, the Serbian Premier Zoran Djindjic declared in an interview his confidence that Gates will invest exactly in Serbia.
• While the UDF were in power in Bulgaria, they voiced in public suspicions about leading Serbian politicians, and particularly about the Euro-Atlantic 'orthodoxy' of the Yugoslavian President Vojislav Kostunica.
Of course, each of these suspicions can easily be explained or excused. It is a fact, however, that the first 'honey moon' in long years in the Bulgarian - Serbian relations was followed by indifference. It became clear that the build-up accumulated for centuries couldn't be overcome for days. Let us try to analyse this build-up - without any ambition to provide a comprehensive or systematic analysis.
o Geopolitical differences. Bulgaria and Serbia have ever been in 'two different worlds'. Even when both Bulgarians and Serbs were under the protection of the socialist system, Yugoslavia's break with the ComInformBureau determined its way - outside the direct Soviet auspices, on the border between the East and the West, with claims for the leadership among the non-aligned nations, and the Third World, and with a different form of socialism based on self-government. The oppositeness of the two countries in their relations to each other remained. Even if we accept the execution of Traicho Kostov as an 'Yugoslavian agent' as a relapse of Stalinism, we see the repressions against the interpreter and intellectual Gancho Savov in the '80-ies again with the same stigma and again with fabricated allegations. The situation looks pretty much the same on the other side of the border where to be a 'bugarash' is an insult and a cause for repression. Bulgaria and Serbia have been in two different worlds in terms of Germany/France, Soviet Union/the non-aligned nations, the West/East, the East/West. Such build-up is not easy to overcome.
o Major ideologies. Significant part of the problems between Serbia and Bulgaria in the 20th century come from or are projected through all the '-isms' on the great mass ideological plane. Bulgarians and Serbs often look at each other through the prism of nationalism, socialism, communism, slavophilism, Christian orthodoxy, instead of the pragmatic outlook of ordinary people and neighbours. As was already mentioned above, on the Balkans, the great ideologies have always divided, and never brought together people; they have always been a splitting factor
and never a mobilising factor. Here, in Eastern Europe, they have never provided a justified reason to love your neighbour.
o The problem with Macedonia. For hundreds of years, this issue has been the bone of contention between Bulgarians and Serbs. Arisen as an issue of influence, transformed into an issue of territorial expansion, and again converted into an issue of influence, it has cost the bleeding to death and lost of faith in both national intellectual elites. There are periods when the whole range of relations between Bulgaria and Serbia came under the sign of the overwhelming Macedonian issue. Its radiation is so powerful, that it cannot be neutralised even by the great 20th century ideologies - and here comes the particularly convincing example of the fate of Metodi Antonov - Chento and his followers among the Macedonian communists.
o The Bulgarian minority in Yugoslavia. The situation of the Bulgarians, who were left after the Treaty of Neuilly, the Tsaribrod area (Dimitrovgrad region), the Bossilegrad region, and several 'kula' and 'tran' villages, is an incessant source of concerns for Bulgaria and worries for Serbia. There are no powerful nationalistic movements among these people, indeed. The Serbian authorities have persistently called them "one of the most loyal Yugoslavian citizens". They have a minority status and receive journalistic information in their own language. But there are problem issues like studying their mother language at school, church services in Bulgarian, the Bulgarian church buildings and monuments, the difficult economic condition in these areas, the problems of the Democratic Union of Bulgarian in Yugoslavia, the debates around the Cultural Centre in Tsaribrod, and particularly the attempts at institutionalising the 'shop' nation, which were received painfully in Bulgaria. It is interesting that some extreme nationalistic circles in Serbia (near to the Voijslav Sesel's Radical Party) tried to invent a reciprocal Serbian minority in Bulgaria. This has nourished the Bulgarian mistrust, which is anyway sensitive to the continuous inventing of new minorities in the Bulgarian territory. Doubtless, the issue of the Bulgarians in Yugoslavia is loaded with enough electricity not to allow for any rough handling through the arguments of national conceit.
o The long historical memory. Although they may insist on the opposite, the problem with the Balkan people is not in their short memory, but rather in their long historic memory. The capability of the modern inhabitants of South Eastern Europe to remember and reproduce historical events of the near and far past, calling to life ideologies of the 19th century, and even myths of the Middle
Ages is amazing, indeed. And the Bulgarians and the Serbs provide one of the best examples of this. This only can account for the fact that the hatered towards Bulgarians in Serbia decreases from the East to the West of the country, to reach to genuine love in Bosnia. In the eastern parts, however, the memory of the contact with the neighbour has been operating flawlessly for generations on end. This can account for the strange double faced Bulgarian extreme nationalism, which has one strongly anti-Serbian face (active on behalf of a family relatedness and geographical closeness with Macedonia), and one strongly pro-Serbian face (active on behalf of a lineal, ideological and geographic antipathy towards the Turks, and the Islam) The long historic memory is directly interrelated with the following phenomenon:
o The internal resistance to getting closer. The history of the Bulgarian-Serbian enmity has produced long-lasting strata in each of the two national elites. These social layers block the attempts at getting closer by populistic and nationalistic arguments of the type "you have sold yourselves to the eternal enemy, you have sold our brothers in …, and our dead from…". The assassination of the Bulgarian Prime Minister Alexander Stamboliisky in 1923 is an extreme example of this, but the problems that any supporter of mutual friendship has always faced are of an everyday character. The history textbooks are difficult to disremember.
o Psychological barriers and stereotypes. As we have already used the concept of 'psychology of small differences', it is easy for us to explain why we do not like the people of our own kind; and what is most important - why we do not admit our own deficiencies, always finding them in the Other. Without going into a psychoanalysis, we should note that Bulgarians and Serbs know each other well and often expose in each other exactly what makes them akin: primitiveness, drunkenness, mercantility, pompousness. The national psychology in combination with the long historic memory produce the national stereotype: for the Serb, the Bulgarian is rational, prudent, a brother in faith and blood, but also cruel, forsaking neighbourly relations and Orthodoxy. For the Bulgarian, the Serb is proud, brave, a patriot, a man of the world, but also mediocre, uncultured, a boon companion going to pubs and cursing, wild, bloodthirsty and cruel. There is no need to explain how the stereotypes are born from the national inferiority complexes, and how it generates a type of thinking 'We want only and solely to be better off than you'. The opposite stereotype creation is not productive either, -
we, the Bulgarians and the Serbs, are the best (in football, sex, rationalisations, in being smart), but we are being screwed up by the whole remaining world (insensitive westerners, mercantile Americans, Jews, masons, etc.) The way of thinking of the 'great conspiracy' type creates a common platform for self-admiration, but also a common alibi for doing nothing. So, if there is an ideological plane, on which Bulgarians and Serbs should never step on together, this is the plane of 'global conspiracy'.
o Economic relations. At the time of the UN sanctions against Yugoslavia, fruitful economic relations were first and foremost established by the mafia - the Bulgarian and the Serb ones. This has considerably facilitated strengthening cross-border crime, trafficking in drugs, people, arms and oil, creating mob welfare havens surrounded by the vast deserts of deprivation. It is a pity we have to admit that the Bulgarian and the Serb criminal worlds communicate much better than the people involved in culture, politics, not to mention the regular economic entities. After the wars, things started to gradually improve, but the volume of trade has not reached the full potential of the two neighbouring countries, Mafia money remained, while the small businesses, driven out by the big sharks, can hardly take part in the joint economic activities. Although small in volume, quasi-legal, and humiliating, 'suitcase' trade for a long time provided the subsistence of whole families. Regretfully, it was the only form of trade, through which ordinary people from the border areas could make some profit from their location.
o Infrastructure links. Regretfully, the two counties are not linked by a highway, and the large waterway connecting them - the Danube River - was virtually blocked as a result from NATO bombings. The highway Sofia-Nis - the missing leg from the Sofia-Belgrade-Central Europe highway - is a too expensive project that the two countries cannot afford on their own. According to preliminary estimates, the highway will cost EUR 700 Mil. in total, of which EUR 324 Mil. will be for the 80-km section in Bulgarian territory. In medium-term perspective, the construction of the freeway should start around 2003. The Stability Pact, the main expected source of funding, is delaying the project all the time. The great poverty on both sides of the border does not attract serious infrastructure investments, in spite of the good prospects of these territories in terms of geographical location. The condition of the road network in these areas (by tradition better in Serbia than in Bulgaria) ranks among the first in terms of disrepair in the domestic ranking of each of the countries.
o Regional co-operation in politics and economy. In spite of the priority, which Yugoslavia and Bulgaria give to regional co-operation, they both look to the West, disregarding the region. Both Bulgarians and Serbs look at the South Eastern Europe as a field on which they can deploy their future leadership. The Serbian political elite - government and opposition one, is used, since the time of the Yugo wars, to have as its counterpart the Western political elite, and finds it difficult to accept its retreat from the focus of world public attention to the status of a peripheral country. On its part, Bulgaria desires to encash its wining pro-West policy for a lasting distance from the unpleasant 'Balkan context' - it does not want to be outpaced in its European integration by a Croatia, for example, or to be forced to wait Serbia and Montenegro for a joint enty into European structures.
o Culture. Similar is the problem in the cultural relations between Bulgaria and Serbia. Bulgarians and Serbs know much better the English and French, even the Portuguese and Irish literature than the literature of their neighbours. The artistic product of a neighbouring country would become popular either after it has triumphed in the West (Ivo Andric, Emir Kosturica), or through the 'pub' culture (Lepa Brena) or thorough the mass culture (Lijubisa Samardzic who became popular in Bulgaria not with 'Walter Is Defending Saraievo' but with the series of 'Hot Wind'). The cultural relations of the Bulgarian minority with partners in Bulgaria are considered with suspicion in Belgrade and with condescension in Sofia. In general, Bulgarians and Serbs know the mass culture, rather than the high cultural achievements of their neighbours, which additionally distorts their mutual recognition: In Bulgaria, Serbs are viewed as men drinking with slightly-dressed pub singers in view; and for the Serbs - Bulgaria is the home country of Christo Stoichkov, a friend and blood brother of the folk singer Miroslav Ilyic. Without underrating the role of mass culture for the insights into the neighbour's national psychology (in the '80-ies there were Bulgarian peasants speaking Serbian with the case flexions learned from the texts of Saban and Wesna's songs; and in the '90-ies Bulgarian folk singers brought their 'messages' to Serbia), it is not always the best means for highly intellectual intercourse.
Let us summarise: everything written so far is not an attempt at a systematisation, but rather an improvisation on the issues of the relations between Bulgaria and Serbia nowadays. But an optimistic point of view towards them is also possible.
Relations between Bulgaria and Serbia Nowadays. Opportunities.
Obviously, the changes after 1989, and particularly the democratic changes in Serbia after 2000, opened real chances for reconsidering the inheritance in the Bulgarian-Serb relations. The Yugo wars and the bombings over FR Yugoslavia have shown an example of mutual interrelatedness of all processes in progress in a small part of the territory of South Eastern Europe.
Probably the most important lesson learnt from these wars and their end, a lesson sad and may be encouraging - depending on the point of view - was the recognition that the Balkans have ultimately lost their geo-strategic importance, they had at the beginning of the 20th century. The First World War started from here, but a Third World War cannot possibly start from here. What is sobering in this conclusion has also some ideological dimensions: we should not be misled to think we are the centre of the world and that everything starts from us. Hence, grasping this great change, which happened not so painfully for Bulgaria, and more so for Serbia, helps for the recognition of the new value: the establishment of free civil societies, featuring high living standards.
How can we view in particular the opportunities in the relations between Bulgaria and Serbia, on the basis of the logic valid so far:
• Bulgaria and Serbia are no more geopolitical enemies. This fact, alone, will not solve the problems, but it has been true so rarely in history (1911-13, 1942-43, 1945-49) that any time it happens is worth making use of. Today, FRY (future Serbia and Montenegro) is restoring its membership in international organisations, declaring its endeavours towards the European Union and to Partnership for Peace.
• Bulgaria and Serbia, at least in words, are not slaves to the great mass ideologies.
• Macedonia is already an independent state, towards which the states of Bulgaria and FR Yugoslavia have no open claims. And even if the underground struggle for influence continues (in the Bulgarian case - on the basis of more distant, and in the Serbian one - on more recent history), the international legitimacy of Macedonia makes talking of new redistribution of territories sound obsolete.
• The Bulgarian minority in Yugoslavia has the chance to get more attention to its civil and economic problems. The willingness of the Yugoslavian side to alleviate border and customs regime and to discuss all other issues, as well as the readiness of the Bulgarian side not to abuse the minority issue in a way jeopardising the sovereignty of Yugoslavia, are encouraging.
• The history is compromised as a mechanism to explain the present relations in South Eastern Europe: Milosevic, who launched on his march up in the name of tomorrow come never, was brought to the
Hague in the same day. The Balkans seem to have tired of fighting their battles of the past day.
• In Bulgaria and Serbia, co-operative elites appeared, that are ready to overcome internal opposition against co-operation. These are elites of political nature (based on the relations between the Bulgarian political parties and the Serbian parties opposing Milosevic) and foremost of civil nature - of those representatives of expert communities, the media, culture, who were building the bridges at the time of wars and sanctions.
• Psychological barriers, although the most difficult to break, are undergoing a serious test of the new intellectual review of Balkanism and the efforts at an optimistic European definition of what is characteristically Balkan.
• In the economy, infrastructure and regional co-operation - new opportunities are provided by the Stability Pact (with all the doubts in its real efficiency) and the trend of global multinational companies to expand their operations from Bulgaria to Serbia and the other way round. New private initiative economic entities are emerging, which are investing for the time being in few but promising joint ventures - forwarding, software sales, tourism. For the first time in 12 years, so much is being talked about the Sofia-Nis freeway. The developed forms of regional co-operation - tripartite meetings of mayors, the Stability Pact, informal ('no-tie') meetings - stimulate the regional dialogue.
• In the recent several years, a highbrow culture flow started from Serbia to Bulgaria, channelled though the natural interest towards it (regretfully generated by the 10-year long Yugoslavian drama), the serious Bulgarian translation school and the initiatives of enthusiasts like Gancho Slavov. As a result, the Bulgarian spectator, reader, and listener knows Milorad Pavic, Danilo Kis, Svetislav Basara, Vladislav Bajac, Dusan Kovacevic, Dusan Makavejev, George Balasevic. Regretfully, however, there is no such flow in the opposite direction. There are many reasons for this: due to the wars Serbia was more interesting for Bulgaria than Bulgaria for Serbia; and due to the former government elite in power in Serbia before, the permeability for Bulgarian art was comparatively low. But the positive trends are in place, and they can be availed of by both sides.
In a word, Bulgaria and Serbia have for the first time the chance to turn history around. And this chance is not so much in the hands of the states, not even of the nations, it is in the hands of the two societies. Of those active civil personalities, who will decide to turn the stereotypes into jokes, the location into business, and the past - into a pleasant tourist attraction.
See more: pdc.ceu.hu/archive/00002439/01/assessing_the_perspectives.pdf