User talk:Zoupan/Serbian national work in Old Serbia and Macedonia

Serbian national work
Serbian national work in Old Serbia and Macedonia began before the Congress of Berlin, however, somewhat better results were achieved at the end of the 1860s and beginning of 1870s (such as the establishment of the Seminary of Prizren in 1871), while systematic and planned attention started after the Great Eastern Crisis (1875–78). With the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and troop deployment in the Sanjak of Novi Pazar, Serbian interest for the south strengthened. The Bulgarian unification (1885) represented a challenge for the future national work in the south. Serbia created a legal base for political and educational-cultural work in Old Serbia and Macedonia; the Society of St. Sava (est. 1886) and Department of Serbian schools and churches outside Serbia (est. March 1887) would handle the greater part of educational-cultural work. Stojan Novaković, the Serbian Minister in Constantinople (1886–91), led the educational-cultural work, in effect, through the consulates of Skopje (1887), Thessaloniki (1887), Pristina (1889) and Bitola (1889). The earlier mentioned Department transformed into the Educational-Political Department (PPO), transferred from the Ministry of Education to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (June 1889). The main tasks of the consulates were: opening schools (finding teachers and agents for Serbian propaganda); establishing church-educational municipalities; opening Serbian bookshops and spreading Serbian books, magazines and newspapers; schooling of Macedonians (with pupils from Old Serbia) for work in Macedonia and overall work among the population on Serbian national idea. Novaković, the coordinator, began preparing the opening of Serbian schools and church-educational municipalities within the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in spring 1887. It was stressed that the Greek metropolitans were responsible to help the work of the Serbian consulates and the overall Serbian educational and cultural activity in the Ottoman Empire; the Serbian government even provided financial aid of 200 napoléons to the Patriarchate for better supervision of the work by the Greek bishops in Macedonia regarding Serbian churches and schools.

Diplomacy and Bulgarian Exarchate
The establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate in 1870 led to a schism in the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate and a boost to Bulgarian national aspirations in the Balkans, exceeding ethnic Bulgarian territories. The return of Bulgarian bishops to the eparchies of Skopje, Ohrid and Veles at the end of the 1880s alarmed the Serbian and Greek diplomacy (the Bulgarian bishops left those in 1876). The borders drafted in the Treaty of San Stefano (1878), including Macedonia, became the goal of the next Bulgarian political generations. Novaković met with Ottoman Interior Ministry representative Artin Pasha in October 1888, warning that the placing of Bulgarian bishops would cause Serbian disappointment which would mean the Ottoman loss of Macedonia. In talks with the Grand Vizier, Novaković portrayed Serbia as the "status quo of any agitation" in Macedonia, that Serbian politics was loyal and "against revolutionary politics". Despite this, Bulgarian bishops Sinesie and Teodosie arrived at Ohrid and Skopje in 1890, which Novaković nevertheless used as a remainder that now was the time to pursue Serbian national interests in Macedonia. On the "ethnographic situation" in Macedonia, asked by an Austro-Hungarian minister in Constantinople, Novaković told that "Macedonians take up a transitional link between Serbs and Bulgarians, which means that for further discussion on how to deal with them, one needs to take other political, economical, historical and geographical considerations into account, and that in this respect Macedonia is similar to Little Russia, standing between Russians and Poles, and to Provence standing between the Italians, Spaniards and French". Recognizing the importance of relations with the Patriarchate, and through it the Greek government, Novaković took advantage of the arrival of Nikolaos Mavrocordatos, the new Greek minister in Constantinople, in autumn 1889, starting negotiations over the determination of spheres of interest in Macedonia.