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 Macedonia itself as condoning and legitimizing policies and practices that cannot be accepted as good and neighbourly by any selfrespecting state.

This paper deals mostly with specific problems in the relations between Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia, outlining actions for their sustainable solution, while briefly mentioning a variety of other relevant measures such as joint infrastructure and other projects (including those funded by the EU and NATO), Bulgarian investment in the economy of the Republic of Macedonia, further streamlining of the procedures for granting Bulgarian citizenship to persons of Bulgarian origin in Balkan states, or incentives for such persons to study at Bulgarian universities etc. Such measures can undoubtedly facilitate the resolution of existing problems, but cannot resolve them alone.

The present report focuses exclusively on Bulgaria’s policies towards the Republic of Macedonia. Actions and policies towards third states, or the EU and NATO are considered only as much as they are essential in achieving the policy goals related to the Republic of Macedonia.

1.1. The Republic of Macedonia

The Macedonian nation and the Macedonian state were created in the process of implementation and evolution of a well known Serbian political construction originally proposed in 1889, later supported by a decision of the Communist International in Moscow in 1934, and eventually put into effect between 1944 and 1991 in one particular part of the geographical and historical region of Macedonia (about 36 percent of its territory) known as Vardar Macedonia, included in the territory of Yugoslavia, and governed by the Yugoslav Communist Party. This idea proclaimed that the ethnic Bulgarians in Macedonia, who had lived there since the 7$th$ century, had nothing to do with the Bulgarian state and the Bulgarian nation – a statement that contradicts the historical interpretation predominantly accepted by historians around the world. The Macedonist doctrine was enforced in Vardar Macedonia by methods and means typical of a totalitarian communist regime: by terror and repression against those who considered themselves Bulgarian (30,000 executed, and another 120,000 sent to concentration camps and prisons); by rewriting history through education and the media; falsifying authentic historical evidence and artefacts; and by counterfeiting historical monuments (inscriptions in churches and monasteries, burial grounds etc.).