Macedonian Language as an Object of an International Dispute (According to Media Materials)

The purpose of this article is to study the issue of politicization of the language dispute between the Republic of North Macedonia and the Republic of Bulgaria. This academic dispute became a political argument not only in relations between two countries, but also in resolving issues in the world. The main method was content analysis the English-language news portal’s materials - Balkan Insight. This analysis provides the opportunity to research the components of this dispute. As a result, it can be stated that in the scientific community there is no consensus about how much and to what extent the Macedonian language is "similar" to other languages of the Balkan Peninsula. Bulgarian scientists do not acknowledge the existence of the Macedonian language, claiming that the language of North Macedonia is a dialect of Bulgarian. The Macedonian scientific community takes a different point of view, arguing that the language developed historically, through the BI media platform, is trying to form European public opinion. The collective West officially support the integration of Macedonia into European structures, but does not reject the positions of individual EU states, such as Bulgaria, which play a significant role.