site.btaNorth Macedonia’s Cabinet Votes on New Composition of Joint Historical Commission with Bulgaria

At a closed session, the government of the Republic of North Macedonia has elected the new composition of the Joint Multidisciplinary Commission of Experts on Historical and Educational Issues between Bulgaria and North Macedonia, media in the country report. According to them, the commission will be headed by lecturer at the Faculty of History of Skopje University Vancho Georgiev, who was a member of the commission but left it in 2021, claiming that political pressure was being exerted on its work.

The government of North Macedonia said at the time that it had never interfered or exerted political influence in the work of the commission, but had always supported the work of the scientists in it, who had established their working principles on their own, together.

The outgoing chairman Dragi Georgiev, whom Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski accused of not protecting national interests enough, and historian Petar Todorov, who himself announced to the media that he would not stay on the commission after his term expires in mid-September, are dropping out. 

In his words, the commission is "a good idea, which unfortunately has been hijacked by political centres that do not want good relations and have no intention of giving up the abuse of history in the maintenance of the historiographical-political dispute." 

According to media reports, the new composition of the commission includes historian Aleksandar Litovski, who was also part of the historical commission in the period 2018-2020, and works at the Institute for National History in North Macedonia.

The other members of the commission are historians Mitko Panov and Dimitar Lorovski from the Institute for National History, Nikola Minov, professor of history, and Sasho Dodevski from the Institute of History of the Faculty of Philosophy of Skopje University, and Besnik Emini from the Institute of Spiritual and Cultural Heritage of the Albanians in Skopje.