Bulgaria blocked the Republic of North Macedonia’s EU Accession yesterday, in part because it does not recognize their language as Macedonian and suggests it's a dialect of Bulgarian .
This can be linked back to strong feelings in the area that the Macedonian nation and language was
engineered by Yugoslavian communists in the late 1940’s to legitimize
Marshal Tito’s claims over the northern Greek province of Macedonia, and
to also weaken demands for unification with Bulgaria.
More about Tito
Nov 8
American dollars and the Greek Communists siding with Stalin over Tito were major factors that led to the end of Yugoslavia's support for the Greek communist guerrillas during the Greece civil war in the late 1940s.
Dec 22, 2020
Watch out for #ergodan who has claimed that all former Ottoman Empire countries, including Bulgaria, are an area of interest for Turkey. Borissov, the Bulgarian PM, and Germany’s Angela Merkel were instrumental in blocking efforts to impose sanctions on Turkey at the December 10-11 EU summit.
Jan 21, 2021
Five citizens of Egypt, who entered Croatia illegally and without personal documents, were deported and the EU will pay the bill. I'm stunned.
Feb 2, 2021
RIP #MiraFurlan , Croatian emigre who starred in 'Babylon 5' and 'Lost'. She was labeled a national traitor when she fled Croatia in the early 1990s. They took her apartment in Zagreb, and she engaged in a successful 17-year legal battle to re-acquire it.
Feb 16, 2021
Netherlands will pay members of a Dutch UN battalion that failed to prevent the massacres of Bosniaks from Srebrenica in 1995, and is also working on compensation to the relatives of those who had taken refuge at the #Dutchbat base, but were massacred. This is making me dizzy.
March 6, 2021
While reading an editorial on how many folks in Croatia view any connection to Tito's Yugoslavia as a negative, I found some basketball news that had slipped my mind. Croatian basketball legends Drazen Petrovic, Toni Kukoc, and Dino Radja were groomed in the Yugoslav school of basketball.
March 19, 2021
As of March 2021 the OECD claims that Slovenian authorities hadn’t penalized any individuals or companies for foreign bribery violations since 1999. That's wild.
April 1, 2021
No fooling: North Macedonia stunned four-time world champions Germany 2-1 in a 2022 World Cup qualifier. They're second in Group J with six points, three points behind Armenia and tied with Germany.
April 9, 2021
I missed this news item from two weeks ago: USA provided 29 new Humvees to assist in the transition of Albania’s 2nd infantry battalion from a light infantry battle group to a motorized infantry battle group ahead of upcoming military exercises in southeastern Europe.
May 13, 2021
#RadovanKaradzic , the former Bosnian Serb leader convicted of genocide during the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, will be transferred from a detention center in the Netherlands to a British jail to serve the rest of his life sentence.
Former Bosnian-Serb general Radislav Krstic was stabbed by three Muslim prisoners at Wakefield jail in England in 2010 in apparent retaliation for Srebrenica and moved to a prison in Poland in 2014.
July 28, 2021
Milorad Dodik, the Serb member of Bosnia's joint presidency, slammed the decision by UN High Representative to Bosnia ,Valentin Inzko."We will not live in a country where someone can impose a law by simply publishing it on his website." Pretty scary when a UN Envoy can overrule Parliament and outlaw the denial of the Srebrenica massacre.
This restriction of speech will inflame tensions. Deniers may be incorrect but still have a right to express their opinions
sept 2, 2021
Beaches along Croatia’s Adriatic Sea coastline are swarming with people. What pandemic?
March 15, 2022
And it goes on and on: Kushtrim Hodaj from the Police Inspectorate in Kosovo said they arrested 48 policemen and two customs officers believed to have taken bribes for allowing illegal goods entering at border crossings with Albania.
April 1, 2022
Just a reminder on NATO and the use of air support. On March 24, 1999 NATO began bombing these targets in Yugoslavia: Belgrade, Pristina in Kosovo, Podgorica in Montenegro. The major reason given was the Serbs ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
April 12, 2021
Kucova, formerly named Stalin City, is being transformed into a modern NATO airbase as a part of Albania's westward shift.
Oct 11, 2022
A reminder from the grave: “I am the leader of one country which has two alphabets, three languages, four religions, five nationalities, six republics, surrounded by seven neighbors, a country in which live eight ethnic minorities.”
― Josip Broz Tito
October 23, 2022
In November 1975 Frank Zappa played a few shows in Tito's Yugoslavia with a five-piece band that included bassist Roy Estrada and drummer Terry Bozzio.
Recordings from these shows are not pristine and have been pieced together from obscure Eastern European technology.
Nov 12, 2022
In 1920 Mussolini, who was not in power at the time, stated that “When dealing with such a race as Slavic – inferior and barbarian – we must not pursue the carrot, but the stick policy."
While in exile, Ante Pavelić, a Croatian, formed relationships with Italian fascists, and even went to Germany to meet with Nazi leaders. By 1940, he was a puppet leader for the Italians in parts of Yugoslavia.
Jan 4, 2022
Mussolini's forces overthrew King Zog of Albania in 1939. After WW2, Tito’s right-hand men, Gilas, and Kardelj, stated that their duty was to “get rid of the Italians in any way”.
May 20, 2023
In 1946 the Allies split up village of Miren, 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) south of Gorizia. About 80% to Italy, 20% to Yugoslavia. The border wall went straight through the cemetery, chopping graves in half. In 1975, this goofiness was resolved through minor land swaps. All of Miren cemetery is now within Slovenia.
Sept 2, 2023
Cultivating cannabis for medicinal purposes benefits foreign entrepreneurs, not Albanian citizens. Red tape costs.
Oct 3, 2023
Tito died in 1980. Croats, Bosnians, etc, describe themselves, as "Yugo-nostalgics".
May 14, 2024
Mussolini felt that it was only the personality of King Alexander that was holding Yugoslavia together and preventing Italy from annexing certain regions of Yugoslavia without fear of reprisal from France.
Ustase assassinated him in 1934 and the new government in Yugoslavia moved closer to the Axis powers.
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