The referendum, which took place last Sunday in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to approve an agreement with Greece to change the country's constitutional name for the Republic of Northern Macedonia, ended either with a failure or with a victory.

Failure is that the required number of participants was not enough to approve a question submitted to a referendum - more than 50 percent of voters. Victory is that of those who came, more than 90 percent expressed support for the agreement..

We still do not know whether this is a failure or a victory, because a referendum in itself is not binding for parliamentarians who make changes to the country's constitution.. The ruling coalition led by the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia could do it without any referendum, but without a vote of deputies from the ranks of the opposition party VMRO-DPMNE there is no constitutional majority. Most of the deputies from this party have already claimed that under no circumstances would they agree to vote for a change in the constitutional name - even if 100 percent of voters come to the polls.. The referendum was held to give the opportunity to save the face of the "oscillating part" of the opposition. Paradoxically, they can do it now, claiming that they support the majority of.

It is clear that after this a split will occur in VMRO-DPNE, but, as they say - not the first and not the last. The founder of this party, the country's former prime minister, Lubcho Georgievsky, generally heads the “other” VMRO and, unlike his former party members, speaks in favor of an agreement with Greece, arguing that there will be no better deal.. And in that he is right.

If the VMRO-DPMN faction remains unified, then the authorities will have to go to early elections, which will turn into another referendum. And now, after this “second” referendum, the parliament will have to return to agreement again. The paradox is that even if the Macedonians approve it then, there are no guarantees that the Greek parliament will do it, in which the power can also be replaced.. Greek conservatives have already declared that they will do everything to prevent the agreement from entering into force - and will fulfill their promise if they come to power.. Then the window of European and Euro-Atlantic opportunities for Macedonia will be shut for another 10-15 years.. This is exactly what Lyubcho Georgievsky meant when he explained that his country couldn’t see a better agreement.

From the Ukrainian point of view in this story too much madness. Why did the Greeks become attached to the name of a neighboring country? Why are the Macedonians so fervently opposed to adding just one word from the geographical dictionary to the name of their state? Why is NATO and the European Union, who want to normalize the situation in the Western Balkans, can do nothing with either the Greeks or the Macedonians? Are they out there, all crazy?.

These questions are dictated solely by our ignorance and unwillingness to know the history and politics of the twentieth century.. The most offensive in the history of renaming Macedonia is that there are no crazy people in it, the parties are guided by quite rational arguments.. These are just arguments from the past, not from the future - and in this the Greeks and the Macedonians are like Poles, Hungarians, Ukrainians — I don’t even remember the Russians, it’s just a Neanderthal cave. After all, we and our neighbors live in a rather archaic world, all the time we are checking the past and therefore are simply not able to understand each other, and are only able to come to a compromise.

In order to understand the causes of today's crisis, one must first forget about King Philip, Alexander the Great and other Labuds, which are so fond of each other’s propagandists. The roots of the current crisis are not at all in the ancient heritage and not in the collapse of the empire of Alexander the Great. And in the collapse of another - the Ottoman Empire, which began in the nineteenth century.

One of the most important episodes of this collapse was the period of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, after which Constantinople agreed to create an autonomous Bulgarian national state, which, among other territories, was to include the entire historical Macedonia. Obviously, not only because they wanted it so in St. Petersburg, but also because a significant number of Slavic people lived in the territory of the future Bulgaria, speaking dialects close to the modern Bulgarian and Macedonian languages ??(although it is obvious that they lived in the region and other significant ethnic and linguistic groups). But such a state did not appear, since practically all of the Romanovs opposed such a significant weakening of the Ottoman Empire’s position and the strengthening of the Russian Empire’s positions..

At the Berlin Congress, the San Stefan Peace Treaty, which suggested the emergence of a “big Bulgaria” was revised, the new state had to be content with only a small part of historical Macedonia, the rest of the region remained in the possession of the Ottomans and became the theater of a new war between Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia at the beginning Twentieth century. As a result, historical Macedonia was divided between these three countries.. Greece went to the Aegean Macedonia - the current province of Macedonia with the center in Thessaloniki, Serbia - Vardar Macedonia - the current Republic of Macedonia with the center in Skopje.

But at the same time, in the 20th century during the First and Second World Wars, Bulgaria, as an ally of Germany, twice established control over the entire territory of the historical province and declared it the reunification of the Bulgarian nation, despite the fact that the Greeks actively Hellenized the Slavs living in the region, serbiziroval.

The most interesting thing began, however, during the Second World War.. The leader of the communist partisans, Josip Broz Tito, faced with the fact that the population of Bulgaria occupied by Vardar Macedonia does not perceive the invaders as occupiers - and even the Bulgarian communists refer to this territory as primordial. There was a threat that in the post-war communist Yugoslavia, about which Tito dreamed, the territory of Macedonia will not be.

And then there is a saving idea.. The inhabitants of Macedonia - of course, not the "southern Serbs", as they tried to prove it before the Second World War. But they are not Bulgarians, so that there invaders do not tell them. They are Macedonians! Macedonians! And their country is Macedonia.

Amazingly, the Yugoslav communists succeeded.. To proclaim the People’s Republic of Macedonia as part of the new Yugoslavia, rationalize the Macedonian literary language, which simply did not exist before the war, create folk music, literature, poetry, in a word - everything. (Something similar, only in the light version, will occur in the autonomous Vojvodina with the Ruthenian language, which in this Serbian region differs from the Ukrainian language in the same way as the Macedonian language - from the Bulgarian language).

But besides this cultural creation of the new people there was a creation of historical. The People’s Republic of Macedonia turned out to be a national center for the Slavic people living in other parts of Macedonia torn apart..

In Bulgaria, Tito was able to reach an agreement with his longtime friend on the Comintern, Georgi Dimitrov, to recognize the Macedonian national minority, its language and culture. But the death of Dimitrov and the conflict of Tito and Stalin led to the refusal of the new communist leader of Bulgaria Vylko Chervenkov from the idea of ??"Macedonism". Bulgaria not only ceased to recognize its Macedonians as a national minority, but also declared the inhabitants of Yugoslav Macedonia to be Bulgarians. The Central Committee of the Union of Communists of Yugoslavia and the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party have been in conflict over this issue for five decades (the Central Committee of the CPSU was on the Bulgarian side, therefore, in the Soviet Union, Macedonians and Macedonians tried not to mention as much as possible). Sofia's position today has not changed much. Bulgaria was the first country to recognize the independence of Macedonia, but considers the Macedonians themselves as the ethnographic group of the Bulgarians, and the Macedonian language as one of the dialects of the Bulgarian.

Everything was much tougher with Greece. Unlike Bulgaria, Greece did not become a socialist country - but Stalin and Tito did not leave attempts to achieve this in the postwar years.. Their support for the Greek Communists led to a civil war and the creation in the rebel-controlled territory of the Provisional Government led by politburo member of the CC of the KPG Marcos Vafyadis. In his Democratic Army there were an estimated 35,000 fighters, of whom 20,000 were recruited from Aegean Macedonia and were overwhelmingly Slavic — that is, Macedonian from the point of view of Belgrade and Skopje. The position of the Greek Communists ranged from demands to recognize the equality of Macedonians within the Greek state to the idea of ??creating a unified Macedonia within the Balkan (communist) federation - obviously, Greece would also have a place in this federation, but without Aegean Macedonia.

The civil war ended in the defeat of the Communists, and besides, Tito and Stalin, as I have already reminded, quarreled.. Greece has never recognized the existence of a Slavic minority (no matter the Macedonian or Bulgarian), as well as any national minority on its territory. And in this situation, an independent Republic of Macedonia appears on its borders.. Of course, it is easy to say that the Greeks are insane, because such a small poor country simply cannot threaten them.. But the Greek Civil War ended more than four decades before this proclamation.. All these decades in Athens perceived Yugoslav Macedonia as just a province of Belgrade with fictitious autonomy.. And here the ghost of "Macedonianism" arises again - and the Greek politicians are well aware that in the Aegean part of the region there really is a Slavic population and they fear that the new state will become the center of attraction. The events of the recent past are still alive. Not only the conservative government, but also the left opposition are categorically opposed to the recognition of Macedonia under its constitutional name. The charismatic leader of the left-wing Andreas Papandreu holds thousands of rallies in defense of Greek Macedonia in Thessaloniki - and what's strange if his father Georgios Papandreou was the very Greek prime minister who tried to disarm the Communists and prevent civil war.

It took almost three decades to have the power in Greece turned out to be forces that were simply not related to the political tradition of the past.. I would even say that they are more ideologically connected with the communists than with their opponents.. That is why Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the left-wing SYRIZA, was able to compromise and agree with what none of his predecessors would agree - that Macedonia would be called Macedonia, even if northern. And that its existence does not threaten Greece, since in a neighboring country a different identity, a different language and culture. But at the same time, all the rest of the Greek politicians - above all the rightists - are sure that Tsipras not only committed a betrayal, but signed a document that threatens the country's national security.. And that the task of the Greek government is to force Macedonia to abandon its “foreign” name and rename it to the “Republic of Skopje”, at the same time admitting that no Macedonians exist either in Macedonia itself, much less in Greece.

Now look at the situation with Macedonian eyes. Macedonians are a nation that has been shaped over the past seven decades, and with the identity of representatives of this nation, things are not so simple.. That is, formally - it's very simple, everyone sings and dances under the Macedonian flags.. But in fact you need to understand that if there are quite a few people among Ukrainians who apart from other nations exist not as an example longer, they can become Russians or Poles depending on the situation of the moment, then among the Macedonians there are no less. Macedonians were all considered Serbs before the war, all were Bulgarians during the war, and after the war it turned out that they are neither the one nor the other, but if the Macedonian, for example, wanted to become a Serb or Bulgarian, then, as you understand, there is no problem and learn the language don't, the Macedonians speak both languages ??fluently. Therefore, the concept of identity defense is the cornerstone of the survival of the Macedonian nation as a nation.. Moreover, in their own country, the Macedonians are compelled to compete with a strong and ever-growing Albanian community - more than a third of the population, soon will be almost half, and this is compact, in the west of the republic - and this community has no problems with identity..

So the concept of the identity of the Macedonians is largely based on the perception of their small country as the center of a large "Macedonian world". Well, the lucky Macedonians of Vardar Macedonia is that they live in their own country, with their own language and culture, while in the rest of Macedonia their compatriots are oppressed, repressed, their rights are violated - the Macedonian media have been telling about this for many decades in a row almost daily. And in this situation, Zoran Zayev, who signs an agreement with the Greek Prime Minister, leaves the persecuted Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia to the mercy of fate, betraying his people and questioning the interests of the country's national security. Because his task is to uphold the constitutional name of the Republic and not just to force his neighbors to recognize him, but also to force them to recognize the rights of the Macedonians of all of Macedonia - and not just its free part.. Because if you leave to the mercy of the brothers in Greece, then tomorrow, and in Macedonia itself, many will not want to be Macedonians, they will no longer believe such a state. Here is how it looks in the minds of those who do not support the agreement with Greece. And this is why Zaev, the leader of the party that dates back to the Union of Communists of Macedonia and perceives the republic primarily in its “Serbian” borders, was able to sign it.. And this is why the opposition, which only recently was in power - VMRO-DPMNE - cannot agree with this agreement.. Because VMRO-DPMNE is the party of “big” Macedonia, and with its recent leader, Nikola Gruevsky, it reached the concept of perceiving the country as a successor to the heritage of Philip and Alexander the Great. And how, with such a perception of the world, can one make concessions to usurpers and oppressors from Athens?.

That is why the objections of the leaders of the VMRO-DPMNE against the agreement word for word - only with a difference in the opposite - coincide with the objections of the leaders of the Greek “New Democracy”. And there is no doubt - when both these parties return to power, they will forget about finding any compromise.. Neither they nor their voters need any compromise.. And the agreement of Tsipras and Zaev is a compromise, because it is based on the need to overcome phobias and myths..

What will happen next is hard to say. It may be possible to convince some of the opposition deputies, the renaming will take place, NATO membership will take place, negotiations with the EU will begin. Perhaps such an outcome will be achieved after the holding of early parliamentary elections..

And maybe nothing will come of it.. And then Macedonia just hangs in the void for another few decades.. At the same time, the Macedonians will dance under their flags, but at the same time actively leave the country, receiving - this is not a problem for them - Bulgarian passports. Albanians will be more and more and their parties will not have to reckon with the Macedonian complexes and dreams. And in the end, the parliament without any referendum and agreement with Greece will rename the country into the "Republic of Skopje" or else into something and the state in an expedited manner to join NATO, and the EU, and the union of Albania and Kosovo. Only to the Macedonians this will not be very important anymore, since they will not constitute a majority in this renamed country.. And there will be just three Albanian states in Europe. One is simply Albanian, the other is with the Serbian minority, the third is with the Macedonian. And everyone will be happy. In addition to the Macedonians themselves, of course. But they still do not know. They are glad that the shameful referendum failed..

This is what is called the window of opportunity.. What Ukrainians need to think every day, every hour, every minute.

Original.