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42 RUSSIAN-BULGARIAN RELATIONS [chap. iv.
our eyes their national aspirations in Macedonia, where
they are fighting Bulgarian propaganda. Towards 1890,
on the abdication of King Milan and the formation of
the new and powerful national party of the Radicals, the
Serbians definitely supplant the Bulgarians in the good
graces of official and Slavophile Russia: the Treaty of
San Stefano is, as it were, tacitly revised by Russia,
and the Serbians benefit by the revision.
VIII. A new change of reign and the appointment of
Prince Lobanoff to the post of Foreign Secretary mark,
between 1895 and 1896, a new trend in Russian policy.
The Bulgarians return to favour, and very naturally
profit by it to attempt once more to place their
Macedonian aspirations under Russian protection. The
muddled state of Serbian home policy between 1896 and
1900 seems to facilitate this plan. And soon Bulgarian
activity redoubles in Macedonia.
IX. But Russian policy, taught by experience, will
not undertake to protect one of the competitors at the
expense of the other, nor allow itself to be forced into
separate action in favour of the populations of
Macedonia. Meanwhile a modus vivendi is inaugurated with
Austria, and Macedonia gradually becomes, thanks to
our initiative, a sphere for wise intervention by the
Powers, with the exception of Germany. The Foreign
Secretary and his Russian representatives in
Constantinople, Vienna, Belgrade and Sofia use their efforts
to bring about a reconciliation and more especially a
unification of interests between Serbia and Bulgaria.
These efforts are not altogether successful. A certain
strain of mutual distrust and jealousy always exists.
However, the tension is slightly relaxed, even on the
dangerous ground of Macedonia, where, during the
particularly troublous times of 1903-1908, the struggle
between Bulgarians and Serbians becomes less bitter,
and in any case never attains to that pitch of ferocity
which characterises during the same period the
Bulgarian exploits against the Greeks, and vice-versd. The
Turkish Revolution helps to check momentarily all
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