MACEDONIAN SEPARATISM IN SOUTHERN SERBIA IN THE PERIOD 1941-1945.

Abstract

This article aims to shed light on Macedonian separatist aspirations in the area of   the occupied part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which in the pre-war period was known as South Serbia, during the World War II, but also immediately after its end, when a political entity called Macedonia was formed for the first time in history. Macedonian autonomists and federalists in this area promoted, tactically speaking, two version of the same policy in the Ottoman and interwar periods, which aimed at the national emancipation of the Macedonians from the rest of the Serbian nation. Thus, during the World War II, there will be several factions of Macedonian separatist politics. One will openly side with the Bulgarian fascist occupier and serve in his occupation apparatus, and for the first time towards the end of the war (1944) will try to form the Independent State of Macedonia, while the other will operate under the auspices of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. During the war itself, and within the KPJ, several currents appeared, which, wanting to achieve the same goal, advocated different approaches to solving the Macedonian issue. One faction will advocate the fight for a Macedonian state in the Balkans through an autonomous national liberation movement with the possibility of joining the Balkan Federation, while the other, prevailing, will fight for the establishment of Macedonia within the Yugoslav framework, i.e. for the realization of national rights under the leadership of the KPJ as part of solving the national question. This policy will win after the Second World War, when the Macedonian federal unit is formed within the new Yugoslav state, which will be the embryo of the future independent state of North Macedonia.