Interwar period After the end of
World War I, Greece perceived
Belgrade as a powerful neighbor with potentially hegemonic tendencies in the
Balkans. Yugoslav ability to attract support from the great powers, mainly
France, created concerns in
Athens that Yugoslavia would pressure Greece on the status of
Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia and potentially even the
Port of Thessaloniki. Similarly to the situation with the
Kingdom of Serbia in the
Second Balkan War, Yugoslavia joined forces with the Kingdom of Greece,
Kingdom of Romania, and
Turkey in establishing the
Balkan Pact, which was aimed at maintaining the geopolitical status quo. Compared to the importance of the Macedonian question to Bulgarian elites, dominant Serb (and to a lesser extent Croat and Slovene) elites in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia expressed less interest in the issue. The
Kingdom of Serbia reoriented its expansionist interest towards southern regions (with small number of ethnic Serbs) only after the
Bosnian Crisis and in fear of encirclement by more powerful Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria. In the Yugoslav period, the southern part of the country was known as the
Vardar Banovina.
Initial postwar years In May 1945, 4,650 Greek refugees, mostly male members of
ELAS, settled in the village of
Maglić with the help of the Yugoslav government. From 1945 to 1948, it was a
sui generis case of Greek
extraterritorial jurisdiction. The
Yugoslav conflict with the Informbiro saw the Greek community divided between loyalty to Yugoslavia and to the
Comintern, and those who supported the latter left the country. The remaining also emigrated to
Greek Macedonia eventually, with only a few remaining.
Post-1948 relations in 1954. The Yugoslav Non-Aligned policy enjoyed significant public support in Greece, especially among individuals and groups critical of too-close Greek alignment with the West. This criticism was on the basis that alignment with the West limited Greece's policies towards Turkey, another
NATO member state. Relations between the two countries developed further after the end of the
Greek junta in 1974 and the electoral victory of
PASOK in 1981. ==See also==