FRESH COMPLICATIONS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 January 1940, Page 3

FRESH COMPLICATIONS

RUSSIA IN THE BALKANS Tlie reappearance of Soviet Russia as an active factor in Balkan and Danubian politics has added some fresh comrnplications to a situation that was already complicated, remarks •'The Times." In Hungary, where a common frontier with Russia recalls the invasion of 1848. not to memion the brief Communist revolution of 1919. tin's change has made the Government more ready for a better understanding with Rumania, but it has also aroused fears lest Russia may extend her interest from the Ukrainians to the Ruthenians on the Hungarian side of the mountains. Another new factor in the situation is the sentimental attraction which Russia exercises on a large body of opinion in Bulgaria. "Old grandfather Ivan” is still regarded with affection, though he has dyed his beard red. The popular desire to regain the Southern Dobrudja, of which'Bulgaria was deprived against all ethnographic justice in 1913 and again after the last war, has been held in check, but it is still alive and might be encouraged by a Great Power which hoped to further its own ambitions by playing on Balkan discords. It may be difficult io believe that the Bulgarian people would repeat the mistakes of their former rulers and break away from the prudent neutrality so ardently desired by their King and their Government. At the same time that pivotal position of Bulgaria in the Balkans and the memory of the events of 1913 and 1915 must arouse a natural anxiety in other Balkan States, and also in those countries, among which Italy is clearly to be included, which desire the limitation of the war and the preservation of peace in the Mediterranean region.