Geschichte und Politik.: Makedonien im Kalkül des russischen Historikers und Dumaabgeordneten Pavel N. Miljukov

Abstract

Four out of the seven chapters of the Carnegie Report on the Balkan Wars were written by Pavel N. Miliukov, a Russian historian and deputy of the Russian parliament. During his long travels in the Balkans between the end of the 19th century and the First World War, Miliukov had fulfilled duties of a researcher, a journalist and a politician. Having lectured at the University of Sofia, he left Bulgaria to take part in archaeological expeditions in Macedonia. In liberal Russian newspapers, he later wrote regularly about the current political situations in South-Eastern Europe. As a historian, Miliukov backed up Bulgaria in the struggle over the Macedonian question by relying on ethnological reasons. As a journalist, he initially preferred the establishment of a Balkan union that included the Ottoman Empire and then advocated the formation of a Balkan federation against the Young Turks. As a politician, he defended the national interests of Russia at the Bosporus and Dardanelles, which also went hand in hand with a Bulgarian predominance in the Balkans. Contrary to Miliukov’s articles in newspapers or his speeches in the parliament, his contributions to the Carnegie Report miss analytical insights. Miliukov defended the Bulgarian position in the Balkans by condemning the Treaty of Bucharest, which was signed in the aftermath of the Second Balkan War, and regarding it as a source of new conflicts.