The aim of this study is to give necessary elements for a comparative study on the position of minorities in the Balkan states, an initiative of the
Republic of Macedonia, that is, of President Gligorov. This book contains data on the position of minorities:
a) before the First World War, mainly as an obligation of the Turkish Empire to protect the religious minorities in the Balkans, but also for the
protection of the minorities that remained in the countries which were obtaining their autonomy and subsequent independence from Turkey (Greece,
Montenegro, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and so on);
b) for the period between the two World Wars, in the system of the League of Nations, when obligations regarding the protection of minorities were
imposed upon all Balkan states, by special minority treaties (in Romania, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenians and Greece), by special
provisions in te peace treaties, imposed on Bulgaria and Turkey, the defeated in the First World War, up to the present, in all Balkan states. A
large amount of data is also given to compare the position of minorities, the quality and scope of their rights, both in the state periods and
comparatively between the Balkan states.
The aim of this book is also wider: to present the international law rules related to the position of minotrities, in the system of the League of
Naitons between the two World Wars, and in the UN system, to date; to show the real position of minorities in the light of those rules, in all
Balkan states who had the obligation to protect the minorities betweenthe two world wars, as well as after the Second World War; to give elements
to compare the number of minorities in the Balkan states in the aforementioned period of development and data about the quality of their rights;
to show on a comparative basis the position and treatment of minorities, in law and in practice, in the countries of the Balkan Peninsula; to
present in detail the position of members of the Macedonian national minority in neighboring countries.
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