Petrunina Olga

“The Great Idea” and the geopolitical situation on the Balkans at the turn of the 21st century.

The author considers the national idea to have become the Balkans’ most viable ideology, the ideology that determined the development of Balkan peoples. The origin of national ideas goes back to the era of formation of the first nation-states. The article studies the features of national ideas of specific countries on the Balkan peninsula, as well as the relations between the national ideas and the state power. According to O.Petrunina, even when national ideas lost the status of official ideologies, they remained the dominant forces in the domestic and foreign policy, and never stopped to exert influence on the process of political decision-making. The author distinguishes two types of national ideas on the Balkans – the civilizational and geographical ones. The latter sooner or later acquired an expansionist shape, which automatically lead to a conflict with the neighbours’ national ideas and served a catalyst for armed conflicts.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2003-29-2-91-113

The Greek «Great Idea» as a Political Program

The article traces the development of a concept of historical mission of the reconstructed Greek state, which was put forward in the mid 19th century. The meaning of the «great idea» amounted to three components: the necessity to unite the Greek nation politically, the historical formation of this unity and the historical mission of Greece as a mediator between the cultures of the West and the East. The author notes that practically straight away on the basis of philosophico-historical «great idea» several political programs have been formed, which are often fundamentally different in the understanding of national objectives and the ways and instruments of their realization (from openly chauvinistic to moderate patriotic). O. Petrunina discovers the presence of the «great idea», though often in a latent form, in the programs of most parties of today’s Greece. During the last decades the focus point has shifted from the priority of external expansion (on the modem stage – stmggle for Cyprus) to economic, informational and cultural measures.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2002-27-4-57-67

Pages: 57-67