Friendly competition – Greek-Serbian relations and Ottoman Macedonia in the Eighties of the 19th century

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the contacts between two Balkan states - Serbia and Greece and their proper attempt to reach an agreement on the division of the Ottoman Macedonia into spheres of interest. The talks of the two countries, that had an alliance agreement as of 1867, were taking place on several levels. Officially between diplomats and politicians and unofficially between diplomats and intellectuals. Although in Greece it was considered that some kind of an agreement could be reached with Serbia over Macedonia, given the weaker position of the Serbian side, the initial findings of the research show that it was very difficult. Both sides had claims to the same region. Athens initially thought that Serbian claims did not relate to those parts of Macedonia to which Greece had claims, but quickly found that the interests of Serbs entered much more to the south than Greek expectations. On the other hand, Belgrade was aware that Serbia's interests would not be realised if they did not have some agreement with Greece. Both sides were friendly toward one another, but their interests were different and competitive.