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Biser Banchev, PhD
Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Thracology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Sofia, Republic of Bulgaria

 

DEATH OF JOSIP BROZ TITO AND THE BULGARIAN FOREIGN POLICY

Vol. XLI, 1/2023, pp. 199–220
https://doi.org/10.29362/ist20veka.2023.1.ban.199-220

 

ABSTRACT/RESUME:

Josip Broz Tito was admitted to hospital nine days after Soviet troops had entered Afghanistan. At the UN Security Council, the Yugoslav representative supported the proposal for immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan. Under the circumstances of growing hysteria in the world, combined with the unlikely probability of Tito’s recovery, Yugoslavia was expected as a possible next target of aggression. In Belgrade and abroad feared that the Soviet Union would invade Yugoslavia after Afghanistan in order to reach the Adriatic coast before its NATO adversaries. President Jimmy Carter declared publicly several times that the United States would undertake any action required for keeping Yugoslavia as a non-aligned country. It was expected that the Soviet troops would attack through Bulgarian territory, and Bulgaria would take advantage of the situation to settle the Macedonian question in its favour. In response to the accusations, Todor Zhivkov declared that Bulgaria had no territorial claims to the SFRY. As far as the media polemics were concerned, the predominant belief expressed in the academic literature traditionally is that “at the time of Tito’s illness and death certain attenuation of the disputes on the Macedonian question was observed”. The contemporaries of the events did not share this opinion. Yugoslavia’s state leadership continued to regard the threat from the eastern border because it believed that in case of a likely increase in the tension between the Great Powers, i.e. the USA and the USSR, in relation to Yugoslavia, regardless of Bulgaria’s will its territory may be used against Yugoslavia. As a public gesture, the Soviet delegation at Josip Broz Tito’s funeral was led by Leonid Brezhnev, and the Bulgarian delegation by Todor Zhivkov. Nevertheless, “The Bulgarian threat” has served as one of the important instruments for preserving the internal cohesion of the nations of the federation after Tito’s death.

 

KEYWORDS: Todor Zhivkov, Josip Broz Tito, Soviet–Afghan War, Macedonian question, Bulgarian-Yugoslav relations

 

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