In 1941 the Bulgarians were greeted as liberators by the Slav population of Yugoslav-Macedonia, but subsequent actions of the Bulgarian authorities quickly disillusioned the locals, leaving the field free for the resistance movements.
Thanks to his new policy and to Stalin's support, the Yugoslav leader J. Broz Tito eventually managed to gain the initiative in the Macedonian Question, contain the Bulgarian Communists and place Yugoslav-Macedonia under his control, by creating a new "Macedonian" state within the context of the post-war Yugoslav federation.
At the same time Tito, who evidently was after political hegemony in the Balkans, worked for the shaping of a "Macedonian" consciousness in the Yugoslav south and the Bulgarian region of Pirin, and even among Slavic-speakers living in Greece.
This intricate phase of the Macedonian Question appeared to lose its intensity after the breach between Tito and Stalin in 1953.
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