The article examines the process of formation of the foreign policy doctrine of Serbia in the Balkans in the 19th century. The author comes to the conclusion that, having gained independence, the young Serbian state sought to occupy its geopolitical niche, to assert itself as an influential regional power in the Balkans. The main foreign policy task of Serbia in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries was the gradual reunification of the Serbian people, divided due to historical reasons, within a single national state. The implementation of this task encountered a counter movement of other Balkan peoples (Bulgarians, Greeks, Albanians), who also sought to expand their state territory. The causes, forms and methods of the struggle of the young Balkan states (Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia) for dominance in the European provinces of the weakening Ottoman Empire, in particular, in Macedonia, are revealed. In their struggle, the national elites of the Balkan states widely used the symbolic resources of the past, various forms of historical politics to consolidate national identity and justify their geopolitical aspirations in the conditions of fierce competition with neighboring states for disputed territories in the Balkans.