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{{short description|South Slavic ethnic group}}
<noinclude>{{pp-semi-protected|small=yes}}</noinclude>
{{for multi|the population of North Macedonia|Demographics of North Macedonia|the ancient people|Ancient Macedonians|other uses|Macedonian (disambiguation)|and|Macedonian Slavs (disambiguation)}}
{{dablink|This article is about the ] ethnic group; for the unrelated people of ] and modern ], see ] and ] respectively. For other meanings, see ].}}
{{pp|small=yes}}
{{Infobox Ethnic group
{{pp-move}}
|group = Macedonians<br/>Македонци<br/>''Makedonci''
{{sprotected2}}
|image = ]
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2020}}
|caption = ]{{·}} ]{{·}} ]{{·}} ]
{{Infobox ethnic group

| image = Map of the Macedonian Diaspora in the World.svg
|population = ] '''1.7 million'''
| caption = Map of the Macedonian diaspora in the world
|region1 = {{flagicon|Republic of Macedonia}} ]
| group = Macedonians<br />Македонци<br />''Makedonci''
|pop1 = 1,&nbsp;297,&nbsp;981
| population = {{circa}} '''2-2.1 million'''
|ref1 = {{lower|<ref></ref>}}
| popplace = {{flagicon|North Macedonia}} ] 1,073,375<ref></ref>

|region2 = {{flagcountry|Greece}} | region1 = {{flagcountry|Australia}}
| pop1 = 111,352<small> (2021 census)</small>–200,000
|pop2 = 962 (official census) - c.200,000 (unofficial estimate)
| ref1 = <ref>{{cite web| title=Cultural diversity: Census |url=https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/people-and-communities/cultural-diversity-census/2021 | publisher=Australian Bureau of Statistics |date=2022 }}</ref><ref name="autogenerated1"> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080626055957/http://www.mfa.gov.mk//Upload/ContentManagement/Files/Broj%20na%20makedonski%20iselenici%20vo%20svetot.doc |date=26 June 2008 }}.</ref>
|ref2 = {{lower|<ref>, </ref>}}
| region2 = {{flagcountry|Germany}}

| pop2 = 115,210<small> (2020)</small>
|region3 = {{flagcountry|Australia}}
| ref2 = <ref name="autogenerated1"/><ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110519210527/http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/Sites/destatis/Internet/DE/Content/Statistiken/Bevoelkerung/AuslaendischeBevoelkerung/Tabellen/Content100/AlterAufenthaltsdauer,property=file.xls |date=19 May 2011 }}.</ref>
|pop3 = 83,&nbsp;978
| region3 = {{flagcountry|Italy}}
|ref3 = {{lower|<ref></ref>}}
| pop3 = 65,347-75,000 <small>(2017)</small>
|region4 = {{flagcountry|Germany}}
| ref3 = <ref name="autogenerated1"/><ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170806142909/http://www.demo.istat.it/bil2016/index.html |date=6 August 2017 }} https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/13186/IT.</ref>
|pop4 = 61,&nbsp;105
| region4 = {{flagcountry|United States}}
|ref4 = {{lower|<ref></ref>}}
| pop4 = 61,753–200,000
|region5 = {{flagcountry|Italy}}
| ref4 = <ref></ref><ref name="autogenerated1" /> <!--In the query on the survey data, partial ancestry was counted as well.-->
|pop5 = 58,&nbsp;460
| region5 = {{flagcountry|Switzerland}}
|ref5 = {{lower|<ref></ref>}}
| pop5 = 61,304–63,000
|region6 = {{flagcountry|United States}}
| ref5 = <ref name="autogenerated1"/><ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303193114/http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/de/index/themen/01/22/publ.Document.88215.pdf |date=3 March 2016 }}.</ref>
|pop6 = 42,&nbsp;812
| region6 = {{flagcountry|Brazil}}
|ref6 = {{lower|<ref></ref>}}
| pop6 = 45,000
|region7 = {{flagcountry|Canada}}
| ref6 = <ref name="Nasevski">{{cite book
|pop7 = 31,&nbsp;265
|script-title=mk:Македонски Иселенички Алманах '95
|ref7 = {{lower|<ref>]</ref>}}
|last= Nasevski
|region8 = {{flagcountry|Serbia}}
|first= Boško
|pop8 = 25,&nbsp;847
|author2= Angelova, Dora |author3=Gerovska, Dragica
|ref8 = {{lower|<ref></ref>}}
|year= 1995
|region9 = {{flagcountry|Switzerland}}
|publisher=Матица на Иселениците на Македонија
|pop9 = 6,&nbsp;415
|location= Skopje
|ref9 = {{lower|<ref></ref>}}
|pages= 52–53 }}</ref>
|region10 = {{flagcountry|Austria}}
|pop10 = 5,&nbsp;145 | region7 = {{flagcountry|Canada}}
| pop7 = 43,110<small> (2016 census)</small>–200,000
|ref10 = {{lower|<ref></ref>}}
| ref7 = <ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mia.com.mk/default.aspx?vId=26258490&lId=2|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120118090345/http://www.mia.com.mk/default.aspx?vId=26258490&lId=2|archive-date=18 January 2012|title=My Info Agent|access-date=18 March 2015}}</ref><ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181225044404/https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/english/census06/data/topics/RetrieveProductTable.cfm?ALEVEL=3&APATH=3&CATNO=&DETAIL=0&DIM=&DS=99&FL=0&FREE=0&GAL=0&GC=99&GK=NA&GRP=1&IPS=&METH=0&ORDER=1&PID=92333&PTYPE=88971&RL=0&S=1&ShowAll=No&StartRow=1&SUB=801&Temporal=2006&Theme=80&VID=0&VNAMEE=&VNAMEF=%20 |date=25 December 2018 }}.</ref>
|region11 = {{flagcountry|Bulgaria}}
|pop11 = 5,&nbsp;071 | region8 = {{flagcountry|Turkey}}
|ref11 = {{lower|<ref></ref>}} | pop8 = 31,518 <small>(2001 census)</small>
| ref8 = <ref> {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090215085128/http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/extraction/retrieve/en/theme3/cens/cens_nscbirth?OutputDir=EJOutputDir_107&user=unknown&clientsessionid=977006CF24C55C1E56E251C52D2EDAE8.extraction-worker-1&OutputFile=cens_nscbirth.htm&OutputMode=U&NumberOfCells=4&Language=en&OutputMime=text%2Fhtml& |date=15 February 2009 }}.</ref>
|region12 = {{flagcountry|Albania}}
| region9 = {{flagcountry|Argentina}}
|pop12 = 4,&nbsp;697
| pop9 = 30,000
|ref12 = {{lower|<ref></ref>}}
| ref9 = <ref name="Nasevski" />
|region13 = {{flagcountry|Croatia}}
|pop13 = 4,&nbsp;270 | region10 = {{flagcountry|Greece}}
| pop10 = 10,000-70,000 <small> (est., incl. Ethnicity) </small>
|ref13 = {{lower|<ref></ref>}}
| ref10 = <ref name="dev.eurac.edu"/><ref name="Simpson, Neil 1994 pp. 92">Simpson, Neil (1994). Macedonia Its Disputed History. Victoria: Aristoc Press. pp. 92. {{ISBN|0-646-20462-9}}.</ref>
|region14 = {{flagcountry|Slovenia}}
|pop14 = 3,&nbsp;972 | region11 = {{flagcountry|Austria}}
| pop11 = 20,135-25,000
|ref14 = {{lower|<ref></ref>}}
| ref11 = <ref name="autogenerated1" /><ref>: Ausländer nach Staatsangehörigkeit (ausgewählte Staaten), Altersgruppen und Geschlecht&nbsp;— p. 74. https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/13186/AU</ref>
|region15 = {{flagcountry|France}}
| region12 = {{flagcountry|Netherlands}}
|pop15 = 2,&nbsp;300
| pop12 = 10,000–15,000
|ref15 = {{lower|<ref></ref>}}
| ref12 = <ref name="autogenerated1"/>
|region16 = {{flagcountry|Bosnia and Herzegovina}}
|pop16 = 2,&nbsp;278 | region13 = {{flagcountry|Serbia}}
| pop13 = 14,767 <small>(2022 census)</small>
|ref16 = {{lower|<ref></ref>}}
| ref13 = <ref>{{cite web|url=https://popis2022.stat.gov.rs/popisni-podaci-eksel-tabele/|title=ПОПИС 2022 - еxcел табеле &#124; О ПОПИСУ СТАНОВНИШТВА|access-date=2024-09-23}}</ref>

|region18 = {{flagcountry|Romania}} | region14 = {{flagcountry|United Kingdom}}
|pop18 = 731 | pop14 = 9,000 (est.)
| ref14 = <ref name="autogenerated1"/>
|ref18 = {{lower|<ref></ref>}}
| region15 = {{flagcountry|Finland}}
|region19 = Elsewhere
|pop19 = ''unknown'' | pop15 = 8,963
| ref15 = <ref name="un">{{cite web|url=http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/data/estimates2/estimates17.shtml|title=United Nations Population Division &#124; Department of Economic and Social Affairs|website=un.org|access-date=2018-06-29}}</ref>
|ref19 =
| region16 = {{flagcountry|Hungary}}
|languages = ]
| pop16 = 7,253
|religions = predominantly ], ], ], ] and others
| ref16 = <ref name=autogenerated4> {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080705022945/http://faq.macedonia.org/history/12.1.3.html |date=5 July 2008 }}.</ref>
| region17 = {{flagcountry|Albania}}
| pop17 = 2,281 <small>(2023 census)</small>
| ref17 = <ref name="Census 2023">{{cite web |publisher=] (INSTAT) |title=Population and Housing Census 2023|url=https://shqiptarja.com/uploads/ckeditor/667eb96647c4bcens-2023.pdf}}</ref>
| region18 = {{flagcountry|Denmark}}
| pop18 = 5,392 <small>(2018)</small>
| ref18 = <ref></ref>
| region19 = {{flagcountry|Slovakia}}
| pop19 = 4,600
| ref19 = <ref>.</ref>
| region20 = {{flagcountry|Sweden}}
| pop20 = 4,491 <small>(2009)</small>
| ref20 = <ref>.</ref>
| region21 = {{flagcountry|Croatia}}
| pop21 = 4,138 <small>(2011 census)</small>
| ref21 = <ref>{{Croatian Census 2011|E}}</ref>
| region22 = {{flagcountry|Slovenia}}
| pop22 = 3,972 <small>(2002 census)</small>
| ref22 = <ref>.</ref>
| region23 = {{flagcountry|Belgium}}
| pop23 = 3,419 <small>(2002)</small>
| ref23 = <ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dofi.fgov.be/fr/statistieken/statistiques_etrangers/Stat_ETRANGERS.htm|title=Belgium population statistics|publisher=dofi.fgov.be|access-date=9 June 2008}}</ref>
| region24 = {{flagcountry|Norway}}
| pop24 = 3,045
| ref24 = <ref>
{{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090112145417/http://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/02/01/10/innvbef_en/arkiv/tab-2007-05-24-05-en.html |date=12 January 2009 }}.</ref>
| region25 = {{flagcountry|France}}
| pop25 = 2,300–15,000
| ref25 = <ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006102733/http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/pays-zones-geo_833/macedoine-arym_442/presentation-macedoine-arym_991/donnees-generales_12144.html |date=6 October 2014 }}, {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080626055957/http://www.mfa.gov.mk//Upload/ContentManagement/Files/Broj%20na%20makedonski%20iselenici%20vo%20svetot.doc |date=26 June 2008 }}.</ref>
| region26 = {{flagcountry|Bosnia and Herzegovina}}
| pop26 = 2,278 <small>(2005)</small>
| ref26 = <ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303183909/http://www.uni-koeln.de/jur-fak/ostrecht/minderheitenschutz/Vortraege/BiH/BiH_Marko_Railic.pdf |date=3 March 2016 }}.</ref>
| region27 = {{flagcountry|Czech Republic}}
| pop27 = 2,011
| ref27 = <ref></ref>
| region28 = {{flagcountry|Poland}}
| pop28 = 2,000–4,500
| ref28 = <ref name=autogenerated3> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080626055957/http://www.mfa.gov.mk//Upload/ContentManagement/Files/Broj%20na%20makedonski%20iselenici%20vo%20svetot.doc |date=26 June 2008 }}.</ref><ref>, p. 260.</ref>
| region29 = {{flagcountry|Romania}}
| pop29 = 1,264 <small>(])</small>
| ref29 = <ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.recensamantromania.ro/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/sR_Tab_8.xls |title= Rezultatele finale ale Recensământului din 2011 – Tab8. Populaţia stabilă după etnie – judeţe, municipii, oraşe, comune |date= 5 July 2013 |access-date= 18 December 2013 |publisher= ] |language= ro |archive-date= 18 January 2016 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160118131243/http://www.recensamantromania.ro/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/sR_Tab_8.xls |url-status= dead }}</ref>
| region30 = {{flagcountry|Bulgaria}}
| pop30 = 1,143 <small>(2021 census)</small>
| ref30 = <ref name="etnoanalizat-na-nsi-8-4-v">Ива Капкова, Етноанализът на НСИ: 8,4% в България се определят към турския етнос, 4,4% казват, че са роми; </ref>
| region31 = {{flagcountry|Montenegro}}
| pop31 = 900 <small>(2011 census)</small>
| ref31 = <ref>.</ref>
| region32 = {{flagcountry|New Zealand}}
| pop32 = 807–1,500
| ref32 = <ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.stats.govt.nz/NR/rdonlyres/7C1B027C-9D93-4657-96CB-901111E560E5/0/07birhtplace.xls |title=2006 census |access-date=2 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071127012451/http://www.stats.govt.nz/NR/rdonlyres/7C1B027C-9D93-4657-96CB-901111E560E5/0/07birhtplace.xls |archive-date=27 November 2007 |df=dmy-all }}</ref><ref> {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110930042306/http://www.mfa.gov.mk//Upload/ContentManagement/Files/Broj%20na%20makedonski%20iselenici%20vo%20svetot.doc |date=30 September 2011 }}</ref>
| region33 = {{flagcountry|Portugal}}
| pop33 = 310<small></small>
| ref33 = <ref name=autogenerated3 /><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://datosmacro.expansion.com/demografia/migracion/emigracion/macedonia |title= República de Macedonia - Emigrantes totales}}</ref>
| region34 = {{flagcountry|Russia}}
| pop34 = 155
| ref34 = <ref>{{https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Frosstat.gov.ru%2Fstorage%2Fmediabank%2FTom5_tab1_VPN-2020.xlsx&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK}}</ref>
| languages = ]
| rels = Predominantly ]<br />{{small|(])}}<br /> Minority ] {{small|(])}}<br>]<br>{{small|(] and ])}}
| related = Other ], especially ], ]{{efn|See:<ref>"Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States", p. 517 The Macedonians are a Southern Slav people, closely related to Bulgarians.</ref><ref>"Ethnic groups worldwide: a ready reference handbook", p. 54 Macedonians are a Slavic people closely related to the neighboring Bulgarians.</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dt2TXexiKTgC&q=political+and+economic+dictionary+of+Eastern+Europe+bulgarians&pg=PA96 |title=Political and economic dictionary of Eastern Europe|first1=Alan John|last1=Day|first2=Roger|last2=East|first3=Richard|last3=Thomas|publisher=Routledge|year=2002|page=96|isbn=9780203403747}}</ref>}} and ] speakers in ]
| native_name =
| native_name_lang =
}} }}


'''Macedonians''' ({{langx|mk|Македонци|Makedonci}} {{IPA-mk|maˈkɛdɔnt͡si|}}) are a ] and a ] ethnic group native to the region of ] in ]. They speak ], a ]. The large majority of Macedonians identify as ], who share a cultural and historical "Orthodox Byzantine–Slavic heritage" with their neighbours. About two-thirds of all ethnic Macedonians live in ]; there are also ].
The '''Macedonians'''<ref>When the name Macedonians is to refer to ], it can be considered offensive by Greeks, especially those from ] in northern ].</ref> ({{lang-mk|''Македонци''}}, ]: {{lang|mk-Latn|''Makedonci''}}){{ndash}} also referred to as '''Macedonian Slavs'''<!--

--><ref name="Slavs">"Macedonian Slavs" can be translated into Macedonian as ''Македонски Словени'' (''Makedonski Sloveni''). Although acceptable in the past, current use of this name in reference to both the ethnic group and the language can be considered ] and offensive by some ethnic Macedonians.{{Fact|date=February 2007}} The Slav Macedonians in Greece were happy to be acknowledged as Slavomacedonians. A native of Greek Macedonia, a pioneer of Slav Macedonian schools in the region and a local historian, Pavlos Koufis, wrote in ''Laografika Florinas kai Kastorias'' (Folklore of Florina and Kastoria), Athens 1996, that (translation by User:Politis),
<blockquote>
“ the KKE recognised that the Slavophone population was ethnic minority of Slavomacedonians]. This was a term, which the inhabitants of the region accepted with relief. Slavomacedonians = Slavs+Macedonians. The first section of the term determined their origin and classified them in the great family of the Slav peoples.”
</blockquote>

The ] reports:<br>: "... the term Slavomacedonian was introduced and was accepted by the community itself, which at the time had a much more widespread non-Greek Macedonian ethnic consciousness. Unfortunately, according to members of the community, this term was later used by the Greek authorities in a pejorative, discriminatory way; hence the reluctance if not hostility of modern-day Macedonians of Greece (i.e. people with a Macedonian national identity) to accept it."</ref><!--

-->{{ndash}} are a ] ] who are primarily associated with the ]. They speak the ], a ]. About three quarters of all ethnic Macedonians live in the ], although there are also communities in a number of other countries.

==Population==

The vast majority of Macedonians live along the valley of the river ], the central region of the Republic of Macedonia and form about 64.18% of the population of the Republic of Macedonia (1,297,981 people according to the ). Smaller numbers live in eastern ], southwestern ], northern ], and southern ], mostly abutting the border areas of the Republic of Macedonia. A large number of Macedonians have immigrated overseas to ], ], ] and in many European countries: ], ], ], ], etc.

]
]
]

===Macedonians abroad===
<!-- Please order the following by the number of people -->
====Serbia====
] recognizes the Macedonian minority on its territory as a distinct ethnic group and counts them in its annual census. 25,847 people declared themselves Macedonians in the .

====Bulgaria====
In the ] census in ], 5,071 people declared themselves etnnic Macedonians (see the official data in Bulgarian ). Krassimir Kanev, chairman of the ] ''Bulgarian Helsinki Committee'', claimed 15,000 - 25,000 in 1998 (see ). In the same report Macedonian nationalists <!-- see section 3.2.1 --> (Popov et al, 1989) claimed that 200,000 etnic Macedonians live in Bulgaria. However, ''Bulgarian Helsinki Committee'' stated that the vast majority of the Slavic population in ] has a Bulgarian national self-consciousness and a regional Macedonian identity similar to the Macedonian regional identity in Greek Macedonia (see ). Finally, according to personal evaluation of a leading local ethnic Macedonian political activist, Stoyko Stoykov, the present number of Bulgarian citizens with ethnic Macedonian self-consciousness is between 5,000 and 10,000 (). (The ] states that Macedonians make up 2.5% of the total population, i.e. approximately 190,000, with no mention of how this figure is obtained, as it is evidently refuted by the latest census figures, see .)

Macedonian groups in the country have reported official harassment (see ]), with the Bulgarian Constitutional Court banning a small Macedonian political party in ] as separatist and Bulgarian local authorities banning political rallies. A ] of the Macedonian minority in Bulgaria – ] – claims that the minority has experienced a period of intensive assimilation and repression<!--check their website-->. It should be noted though that the Republic of Macedonia banned a similar pro-Bulgarian organization - - as separatist.

====Albania====
] recognizes ethnic Macedonians as an ethnic minority and delivers primary education in the ] in the border regions where most ethnic Macedonians live. In the 1989 census, 4,697<ref>Artan Hoxha and Alma Gurraj
Local Self-GOvernment and
Decentralization: Case of Albania. History, Reformes and Challenges. In: Local Self Government and Decentralization
in South - East Europe. Proceedings of the workshop held in Zagreb, Croatia
6<sup>th</sup> April, 2001.
Friedrich Ebert Stiftung,
Zagreb Office,
Zagreb 2001, pp 194-224
, </ref> people declared themselves ethnic Macedonians.

Ethnic Macedonian organizations allege that the government undercounts their number and that they are politically underrepresented - there are no ethnic Macedonians in the Albanian parliament. Some say that there has been disagreement among the Slav-speaking Albanian citizens about their being members of a Macedonian nation as a significant percentage of their number are ]es and self-identify as ]. External estimates on the population of ethnic Macedonians in Albania include 10,000 , whereas ethnic Macedonian sources have claimed that there are 120,000 - 350,000 ethnic Macedonians in Albania .

====Greece====
:''See also: ], ]''

]
]

Claims regarding the existence of an ethnic Macedonian minority in Greece are rejected by the Greek government. These claims are directed at the Slavic-speaking community of northern Greece, which dominantly self-identifies as Greek (not as ethnic Macedonian) and defines its language as '']'' or ''Dopia'' (a Greek word for 'local'). This community numbered by 41,017 people according to the latest Greek census to include a question on mother tongue held in 1951, and local authorities in Greece continue to acknowledge its existence. Depending on dialect, this language is classified by linguists as either ] or ]. The size of this community today is estimated at between 100,000 and 200,000 by the ], however, it also states that only an estimated 10,000-30,000 of these people might have an ethnic Macedonian national identity, basing this figure on the electoral performance of the only political party in Greece promoting the recognition and existence of an ethnic Macedonian minority in ]: the ], which was founded around ] and received only 2,955 votes in Greek Macedonia in the ] elections . In 2007, it did not stand for elections. The rest of the Slavic-speakers of northern Greece who don't self-identify as ethnic Macedonians, but as Greeks are often ]ly referred to as ] by some people in the Republic of Macedonia and transnational ethnic Macedonian communities. <ref name="Loring M. Danforth">The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World, (a) pg. 221 (b) pg. 51, by Loring M. Danforth, ISBN 0-691-04356-6</ref> In 1993, at the height of the name controversy and just before joining the UN, the government in Skopje claimed that there were between 230,000 and 270,000 Macedonians living in northern Greece, while the Athens government claimed there were around 100,000 Greeks in the Republic of Macedonia..

According to an unofficial estimate published by ], Macedonians make up 1.8% of the total population of ] (about 200,000) <sup></sup>.

====Other countries====
Significant Macedonian communities can also be found in the traditional immigrant-receiving nations, as well as in Western European countries. It should be noted that census data in many European countries (such as ] and ]) does not take into account the ethnicity of émigrés from the ]:
*'''Australia''': The official number of Macedonians in ] by birthplace or birthplace of parents is 82,000 (). The main Macedonian communities are found in ], ], ], ], ], ] and ]. (The 2006 Australian Census included a question of 'ancestry' which, according to Members of the Australian-Macedonian Community, will result in a significant increase of 'ethnic Macedonians' in Australia) ''See also ]'';
*'''Canada''': The Canadian census in 2001 records 31,265 individuals claimed wholly- or partly-Macedonian heritage in ] (]), although community spokesmen have claimed that there are actually 100,000-150,000 Macedonians in Canada ''(see also ])'';
*'''USA''': A significant Macedonian community can be found in the ]. The official number of Macedonians in the USA is 43,000 (). The Macedonian community is located mainly in ], ], ], ] and ] (''See also ]'');
*'''Germany''': There are an estimated 61,000 citizens of the Republic of Macedonia in ] ();
*'''Italy''': There are 58,460 citizens of the Republic of Macedonia in ] ().


The concept of a Macedonian ethnicity, distinct from their Orthodox Balkan neighbours, is seen to be a comparatively newly emergent one.{{efn|See:<ref>], ''On the Macedonian Matters'' (''Za Makedonckite Raboti''), Sofia, 1903: "And, anyway, what sort of new Macedonian nation can this be when we and our fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers have always been called Bulgarians?"</ref><ref>{{Cite book | last1 = Sperling | first1 = James | last2 = Kay | first2 = Sean | last3 = Papacosma | first3 = S. Victor | title = Limiting institutions?: the challenge of Eurasian security governance | year = 2003 | publisher=Manchester University Press | location = Manchester, UK | isbn = 978-0-7190-6605-4 | page = 57 |quote=Macedonian nationalism Is a new phenomenon. In the early twentieth century, there was no separate Slavic Macedonian identity }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book | last1 = Titchener | first1 = Frances B. | last2 = Moorton | first2 = Richard F. | title = The eye expanded: life and the arts in Greco-Roman antiquity | year = 1999 | publisher=University of California Press | location = Berkeley | isbn = 978-0-520-21029-5 | page = 259|quote=On the other hand, the Macedonians are a newly emergent people in search of a past to help legitimize their precarious present as they attempt to establish their singular identity in a Slavic world dominated historically by Serbs and Bulgarians. ... The twentieth-century development of a Macedonian ethnicity, and its recent evolution into independent statehood following the collapse of the Yugoslav state in 1991, has followed a rocky road. In order to survive the vicissitudes of Balkan history and politics, the Macedonians, who have had no history, need one.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book | last1 = Kaufman | first1 = Stuart J. | title = Modern hatreds: the symbolic politics of ethnic war | year = 2001 | publisher=Cornell University Press | location = New York | isbn = 0-8014-8736-6 | page = 193|quote=The key fact about Macedonian nationalism is that it is new: in the early twentieth century, Macedonian villagers defined their identity religiously—they were either "Bulgarian," "Serbian," or "Greek" depending on the affiliation of the village priest. ... According to the new Macedonian mythology, modern Macedonians are the direct descendants of Alexander the Great's subjects. They trace their cultural identity to the ninth-century Saints Cyril and Methodius, who converted the Slavs to Christianity and invented the first Slavic alphabet, and whose disciples maintained a centre of Christian learning in western Macedonia. A more modern national hero is Gotse Delchev, leader of the turn-of-the-century Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), which was actually a largely pro-Bulgarian organization but is claimed as the founding Macedonian national movement.}}</ref><ref name="Cambridge University Press_quote">{{Cite book | last1 = Rae | first1 = Heather | title = State identities and the homogenisation of peoples | year = 2002 | publisher=Cambridge University Press | location = Cambridge | isbn = 0-521-79708-X | page =278|quote= Despite the recent development of Macedonian identity, as Loring Danforth notes, it is no more or less artificial than any other identity. It merely has a more recent ethnogenesis – one that can therefore more easily be traced through the recent historical record.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book | last1 = Zielonka | first1 = Jan | last2 = Pravda | first2 = Alex | title = Democratic consolidation in Eastern Europe | year = 2001 | publisher=Oxford University Press | location = Oxford | isbn = 978-0-19-924409-6 | page = 422|quote=Unlike the Slovene and Croatian identities, which existed independently for a long period before the emergence of SFRY Macedonian identity and language were themselves a product federal Yugoslavia, and took shape only after 1944. Again unlike Slovenia and Croatia, the very existence of a separate Macedonian identity was questioned—albeit to a different degree—by both the governments and the public of all the neighboring nations (Greece being the most intransigent)}}</ref>}} The earliest manifestations of an incipient Macedonian identity emerged during the second half of the 19th century<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/14/weekinreview/the-world-the-land-that-can-t-be-named.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190129231959/https://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/14/weekinreview/the-world-the-land-that-can-t-be-named.html|archive-date=29 January 2019|quote=Macedonian nationalism did not arise until the end of the last century.|date=14 May 1995|work=The New York Times|last=Bonner|title=The World; The Land That Can't Be Named|first=Raymond|access-date=29 January 2019|location=New York|author-link=Raymond Bonner}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|quote=They were also insisting that the Macedonians sacrifice their national name, under which, as we have seen throughout this work, their national identity and their nation formed in the nineteenth century.|url=http://research.policyarchive.org/11853.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190128222837/http://research.policyarchive.org/11853.pdf|archive-date=2019-01-28|title=Macedonia and the Macedonians: A History|page=269|publisher=Hoover Institution Press|first=Andrew|last=Rossos|author-link=Andrew Rossos|date=2008|isbn=978-0817948832|access-date=28 January 2019}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|quote=Under very trying circumstances, most ethnic Macedonians chose a Macedonian identity. That identity began to form with the Slav awakening in Macedonia in the first half of the nineteenth century.|url=http://research.policyarchive.org/11853.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190128222837/http://research.policyarchive.org/11853.pdf|archive-date=2019-01-28|title=Macedonia and the Macedonians: A History|page=284|publisher=Hoover Institution Press|first=Andrew|last=Rossos|date=2008|author-link=Andrew Rossos|isbn=978-0817948832|access-date=28 January 2019}}</ref> among limited circles of Slavic-speaking intellectuals, predominantly outside the region of Macedonia. They arose after the ] and especially during the 1930s, and thus were consolidated by Communist Yugoslavia's governmental policy after the ].{{efn|See:<ref>Loring M. Danforth, ''The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World'', 1995, Princeton University Press, p.65, {{ISBN|0-691-04356-6}}</ref><ref>Stephen Palmer, Robert King, ''Yugoslav Communism and the Macedonian question'', Hamden, Connecticut Archon Books, 1971, p.p.199-200</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uOPUnWM8RAYC&q=The+Macedonian+Question,+Britain+and+the+Southern+Balkans+1939-1949&pg=PP13|title=The Macedonian Question: Britain and the Southern Balkans 1939–1949|access-date=18 March 2015|isbn=9780191528729|last1=Livanios|first1=Dimitris|date=17 April 2008|publisher=OUP Oxford }}</ref><ref name="Woodhouse">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qYAwZFwyYdwC&q=Chris+Woodhouse+Struggle+for+Greece+1941-1949&pg=PR25|title=The Struggle for Greece, 1941–1949|access-date=18 March 2015|isbn=9781850654926|last1=Woodhouse|first1=Christopher M.|year=2002|publisher=Hurst }}</ref><ref name="macedonians">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j_NbmSoRsRcC&q=who+are+the+macedonians&pg=PP1|title=Who are the Macedonians?|access-date=18 March 2015|isbn=9781850652380|last1=Poulton|first1=Hugh|year=1995|publisher=Hurst }}</ref>}}
Other significant ethnic Macedonian communities can also be found in the other Western European countries such as ], ], ], ], ], etc.
The formation of the ethnic Macedonians as a separate community has been shaped by ]<ref>James Horncastle, The Macedonian Slavs in the Greek Civil War, 1944–1949; Rowman & Littlefield, 2019, {{ISBN|1498585051}}, p. 130.</ref> as well as by ],<ref>Stern, Dieter and Christian Voss (eds). 2006. "Towards the peculiarities of language shift in Northern Greece". In: "Marginal Linguistic Identities: Studies in Slavic Contact and Borderland Varieties." Eurolinguistische Arbeiten. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz Verlag; {{ISBN|9783447053549}}, pp. 87–101.</ref>{{dubious|date=April 2020}} both the result of the political developments in the region of ] during the 20th century. Following the ], the decisive point in the ] of the South Slavic ethnic group was the creation of the ] after World War II, a state in the framework of the ]. This was followed by the development of a separate Macedonian language and national literature, and the foundation of a distinct ] and national historiography.


==History== ==History==
{{Main|History of the Macedonians (ethnic group)}}
===Origins===
{{See also|Macedonian historiography|Macedonian nationalism|}}
]'s "Dictionary of Three languages: Macedonian, Albanian, Turkish" published in ] he writes the following to the question “What do we call a nation”? Pulevski answers “People who are of the same origin and who speak the same words and who live and make friends of each other, who have the same customs and songs and entertainment are what we call a nation, and the place where that people lives is called the people's country. Thus the Macedonians also are a nation and the place which is theirs is called Macedonia.”]]
===Ancient and Roman period===
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In antiquity, much of central-northern Macedonia (the ]) was inhabited by ] who expanded from the lower Strymon basin. The Pelagonian plain was inhabited by the ] and the ], ] tribes of ]; whilst the western region (Ohrid-Prespa) was said to have been inhabited by ] tribes, such as the ].<ref>A J Toynbee. ''Some Problems of Greek History'', Pp 80; 99–103</ref> During the late Classical Period, having already developed several sophisticated '']''-type settlements and a thriving economy based on mining,<ref>The Problem of the Discontinuity in Classical and Hellenistic Eastern Macedonia, Marjan Jovanonv. УДК 904:711.424(497.73)</ref> Paeonia became a constituent province of the ] – ].<ref>A Companion to Ancient Macedonia. Wiley -Blackwell, 2011. Map 2</ref> In 310 BC, the ] attacked deep into the south, subduing various local tribes, such as the ]ans, the Paeonians and the ]. ] conquest brought with it a significant ] of the region. During the ] period, ']' ] were settled on Macedonian soil at times; such as the ] settled by ] (330s AD)<ref>Peter Heather, Goths and Romans 332–489. p. 129</ref> or the (10 year) settlement of ]'s ].<ref name="ReferenceA">''Macedonia in Late Antiquity'' p. 551. In A Companion to Ancient Macedonia. Wiley -Blackwell, 2011</ref> In contrast to 'frontier provinces', Macedonia (north and south) continued to be a flourishing Christian, Roman province in ] and into the ].<ref name="ReferenceA"/><ref name="ReferenceB">{{cite journal | last1 = Curta | first1 = Florin | year = 2012 | title = Were there any Slavs in seventh-century Macedonia? | journal = Journal of History | volume = 47 | page = 73 }}</ref>
The ancestry of present-day Macedonians is mixed. Their ethnogenesis occurred during the 6th century when various ] migrated to, and settled in, the region of ]. These tribes are reputed for their acceptance of other tribal peoples, and most ethnographers such as ]<ref>Пътуване по долините на Струма, Места и Брегалница. Битолско, Преспа и Охридско. Васил Кънчов (Избрани произведения. Том I. Издателство “Наука и изкуство”, София 1970) </ref>, ],<ref>(ETHNOGRAPHIE VON MAKEDONIEN, Geschichtlich-nationaler, spraechlich-statistischer Teil von Prof. Dr. Gustav Weigand, Leipzig, Friedrich Brandstetter, 1924, Превод Елена Пипилева)</ref> and the ] ] posit that they absorbed part of the indigenous populations of the area, including ], ] and ]. <ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-4411/Macedonia |title=Macedonia :: History. -- Encyclopaedia Britannica |accessdate=2007-08-27 |format= |work=}}</ref> <ref name="isbn0-8371-6328-5">{{cite book |author=Coon, Carleton Stevens |title=] |publisher=Greenwood Press Reprint |location= |year= |pages= |isbn=0-8371-6328-5 |oclc= |doi=}}, Chapter XII, section 15</ref>. They also may have mixed with later groups such as ], as stated by the ] ]rs ]<ref>Theophilactus Simocatta. Historae. Ed. C. de Boor. Lipsiae, 1887, p.259</ref> and ].<ref> "Acta Sancti Demetrii", V 195-207, Гръцки извори за българската история, 3, стр. 159-166 (Medieval Greek, Bulgarian)</ref> Coon, in his book ], together with his predecessor ], described the Slavic speakers in Macedonia as ]. Following researchers such as ] have been placed the both populations in a common ] subgroup, according the book ''The Races And Peoples Of Europe''.<ref>Lundman, Bertil J. - The Races and Peoples of Europe (New York: IAAEE. 1977)</ref>


===Medieval period===
The Macedonian population is also of special interest for ] ] study in the light of unanswered questions regarding its origin and relationship with other populations, especially the neighbouring Balkanians.<ref name="pmid15361127">{{cite journal |author=Petlichkovski A, Efinska-Mladenovska O, Trajkov D, Arsov T, Strezova A, Spiroski M |title=High-resolution typing of HLA-DRB1 locus in the Macedonian population |journal=Tissue Antigens |volume=64 |issue=4 |pages=486-91 |year=2004 |pmid=15361127 |doi=10.1111/j.1399-0039.2004.00273.x}}</ref> A ] constructed on the basis of the high-resolution data deriving from other populations revealed the clustering of Macedonians together with other ] populations - Bulgarians, Serbians, Croats and Romanians, being most related to Bulgarians<ref name="pmid12542743">{{cite journal |author=Ivanova M, Rozemuller E, Tyufekchiev N, Michailova A, Tilanus M, Naumova E |title=HLA polymorphism in Bulgarians defined by high-resolution typing methods in comparison with other populations. |journal=Tissue Antigens |volume=60 |issue=6 |pages=496-504 |year=2002 |pmid=12542743 |doi=}}</ref><ref>Bulgarian Bone Marrow Donors Registry—past and future directions - Asen Zlatev, Milena Ivanova, Snejina Michailova, Anastasia Mihaylova and Elissaveta Naumova, Central Laboratory of Clinical Immunology, University Hospital “Alexandrovska”, Sofia, Bulgaria, Published online: 2 June 2007 </ref> and Serbians.
Linguistically, the South Slavic languages from which Macedonian developed are thought to have expanded in the region during the post-Roman period, although the exact mechanisms of this linguistic expansion remains a matter of scholarly discussion.<ref>{{harvtxt|Curta|2004|p=148}}</ref> Traditional historiography has equated these changes with the commencement of raids and 'invasions' of ] and ] from ] and western Ukraine during the 6th and 7th centuries.<ref>{{harvtxt|Fine|1991|p=29}}</ref> However, recent anthropological and archaeological perspectives have viewed the appearance of ] in Macedonia, and throughout the ] in general, as part of a broad and complex process of transformation of the cultural, political and ethnolinguistic Balkan landscape before the collapse of Roman authority. The exact details and chronology of population shifts remain to be determined.<ref>T E Gregory, ''A History of Byzantium''. Wiley- Blackwell, 2010. p. 169</ref><ref>{{Harvard citation text|Curta|2001|pp=335–345}}</ref> What is beyond dispute is that, in contrast to "barbarian" Bulgaria, northern Macedonia remained ] in its cultural outlook into the 7th century.<ref name="ReferenceB"/> Yet at the same time, sources attest numerous ] in the environs of ] and further afield, including the ] in Pelagonia.<ref>Florin Curta. ''Were there any Slavs in seventh-century Macedonia?'' 2013</ref> Apart from Slavs and late Byzantines, ]'s "]"<ref>The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia, Denis Sinor, Cambridge University Press, 1990, {{ISBN|0521243041}}, </ref> – a mix of ], ] and ] – settled the "Keramissian plain" (]) around ] in the late 7th century.{{sfn|Fine|1991|pp=71}}<ref>{{lang|mk|Во некрополата "Млака" пред тврдината во Дебреште, Прилеп, откопани се гробови со наоди од доцниот 7. и 8. век. Тие се делумно или целосно кремирани и не се ниту ромеjски, ниту словенски. Станува збор наjвероjатно, за Кутригурите. Ова протобугарско племе, под водство на Кубер, а како потчинето на аварскиот каган во Панониjа, околу 680 г. се одметнало од Аварите и тргнало кон Солун. Кубер ги повел со себе и Сермесиjаните, (околу 70.000 на број), во нивната стара татковина. Сермесиjаните биле Ромеи, жители на балканските провинции што Аварите ги заробиле еден век порано и ги населиле во Западна Панониjа, да работат за нив. На Кубер му била доверена управата врз нив.}} In English: In the necropolis 'Malaka' in the fortress of Debreshte, near Prilep, graves were dug with findings from the late 7th and early 8th century. They are partially or completely cremated and neither Roman nor Slavic. The graves are probably remains from the ]. This Bulgar tribe was led by Kuber... Средновековни градови и тврдини во Македонија. Иван Микулчиќ (Скопје, Македонска цивилизација, 1996) </ref><ref>"The" Other Europe in the Middle Ages: Avars, Bulgars, Khazars and Cumans, East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450 – 1450, Florin Curta, Roman Kovalev, BRILL, 2008, {{ISBN|9004163891}}, p. 460.</ref><ref>W Pohl. ''The Avars (History)'' in Regna and Gentes. The Relationship Between Late Antique and Early Medieval Peoples and Kingdoms in the Transformation of the Roman World. pp. 581, 587</ref> Later pockets of settlers included "Danubian" ]<ref> ''They spread from the original heartland in north-east Bulgaria to the Drina in the west, and to Macedonia in the south-west.; На целиот тој простор, во маса метални производи (делови од воената опрема, облека и накит), меѓу стандардните форми користени од словенското население, одвреме-навреме се појавуваат специфични предмети врзани за бугарско болјарство како носители на новата државна управа''. See: Средновековни градови и тврдини во Македонија. Иван Микулчиќ (Скопје, Македонска цивилизација, 1996) стр. 35; 364–365.</ref><ref>Dejan Bulić, The Fortifications of the Late Antiquity and the Early Byzantine Period on the Later Territory of the South-Slavic Principalities, and Their Re-occupation in ] et al., The World of the Slavs: Studies of the East, West and South Slavs: Civitas, Oppidas, Villas and Archeological Evidence (7th to 11th Centuries AD) with Srđan Rudić as ed. Istorijski institut, 2013, Belgrade; {{ISBN|8677431047}}, pp. 186–187.</ref> in the 9th century; ]<ref>Florin Curta. 'The Edinburgh History of the Greeks, C. 500 to 1050: The Early Middle Ages. pp. 259, 281</ref> and ] in the 10th–12th centuries,<ref>Studies on the Internal Diaspora of the Byzantine Empire edited by ], ], p. 58. Many were apparently based in Bitola, Stumnitsa and Moglena</ref> ] and ] in the 11th–13th centuries,<ref>Cumans and Tatars: Oriental Military in the Pre-Ottoman Balkans, 1185–1365. Istvan Varsary. p. 67</ref> and ] in the 14th and 15th centuries.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kxKBMhz3e7AC&q=saxon+miners+macedonia&pg=PA89|title=Balkan Worlds|access-date=18 March 2015 |isbn=9780765638519| last1=Stoianovich| first1=Traian| date=September 1994|publisher=M.E. Sharpe }}</ref> Vlachs (Aromanians) and Arbanasi (Albanians) also inhabited this area in the Middle ages and mingeled with the local Slavic-speakers.<ref>Czamanska, Ilona. (2016). Vlachs and Slavs in the Middle Ages and Modern Era. Res Historica. 41. 11. 10.17951/rh.2016.0.11. </ref><ref>Гюзелев, Боян. Албанци в Източните Балкани, София 2004, Редактор: Василка Танкова, ИМИР (Международен центур за изследване на малцинствата и културните взаимодействия), {{ISBN|9789548872454}}, стр. 10-22.</ref>


Having previously been Byzantine clients, the ''Sklaviniae'' of Macedonia switched their allegiance to the Bulgarians with their incorporation into the ] in the mid-800s.{{sfn|Fine|1991|pp=110–111}} In the 860s, Byzantine missionaries ], created the ] and Slavonic liturgy based on the Slavic dialect around ] for a mission to ].<ref>{{harvnb|Fine|1991|pp=113, 196}} Two brothers ... Constantine and Methodius were fluent in the dialect of Slavic in the environs of Thessaloniki. They devised an alphabet to convey Slavic phonetics.</ref><ref>Francis Dvornik. ''The Slavs'' p. 167</ref><ref>Ostrogorsky, ''History of the Byzantine State'' p. 310</ref> After the demise of the Great Moravian mission in 886, exiled students of the two ] brought the Glagolitic alphabet to the ], where Khan ] ({{reign | 852 | 889}}) welcomed them. As part of his efforts to limit Byzantine influence and assert Bulgarian independence, he adopted Slavic as official ecclesiastical and state language and established the ] and ], which taught Slavonic liturgy and the Glagolitic and subsequently the ].<ref>{{cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=29BAeKHwvuoC&pg=PA43 |title= Encyclopedia of the Languages of Europe|isbn= 978-0-63122039-8|last1= Price |first1= Glanville |date= 2000-05-18|publisher= Wiley}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=fWp9JA3aBvcC&pg=PA51 |title= The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity|isbn= 978-1-44433361-9 |last1= Parry|first1= Ken|date= 2010-05-10|publisher= John Wiley & Sons}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=QwNlKqyNC7EC&pg=PA58 |title= Interaction and Isolation in Late Byzantine Culture|isbn= 978-1-85043944-8|last1= Rosenqvist |first1= Jan Olof|year= 2004|publisher= Bloomsbury Academic}}</ref> The success of Boris I's efforts was a major factor in making the Slavs in Macedonia—and the other Slavs within the ]—into ] and transforming the <em>Bulgar</em> state into a <em>Bulgarian</em> state.{{sfn|Fine|1991|pp=127 }}<ref>{{cite book|last=Hupchick|first=Dennis|title=The Balkans: From Constantinople to Communism|year=2002|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|location=New York|isbn=978-1-4039-6417-5|page=44|quote=Boris I welcomed the refugees with open arms, offered them his atronage, and helped them establish a missionary operation centered on Ohrid in Bulgar Macedonia, where they trained youths for the clergy and translated the entire Orthodox liturgy into Slavic. The newly trained Slavic-speaking priests then were sent among the state's Slav subjects. As their influence spread and the numbers of converts multiplied, a new sense of community and state was created within the population. Separate ethnic identities slowly merged into a common Bulgarian one, and regional or tribal loyalties perceptibly shifted to the state, personified by its now-Christian ruler. A state of Bulgaria, as opposed to a Bulgar state, was born.}}</ref> Subsequently, the literary and ecclesiastical centre in ] became a second cultural capital of medieval Bulgaria.<ref>Alexander Schenker. ''The Dawn of Slavic''. pp. 188–190. Schenker argues that Ohrid was 'innovative' and 'native Slavic' whilst Preslav very much relied on Greek modelling.</ref><ref>Per Curta, Preslav was the center from which the scriptorial innovation associated with the introduction of Cyrillic spread to other regions of Bulgaria. Florin Curta (2006) Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500–1250, Cambridge University Press, p. 221, {{ISBN|9780521894524}}.</ref>
=== Identities ===


=== Ottoman period ===
] published in 1903, in which he has laid down the principles of the modern ] and has elaborated that "Macedonian Slavs" are separate people. At later points of his life he would changed this opinion several times.]]
{{See also|Macedonian Bulgarians|Slavic speakers in Ottoman Macedonia}}


After the final Ottoman conquest of the Balkans by the Ottomans in the 14/15th century, all Eastern Orthodox Christians were included in a specific ethno-religious community under ''Graeco-Byzantine'' jurisdiction called ]. Belonging to this religious commonwealth was so important that most of the common people began to identify themselves as ''Christians''.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=htMUx8qlWCMC&q=millet++bulgarian+identity+detrez&pg=PA47|title=Europe and the Historical Legacies in the Balkans|access-date=18 March 2015|isbn=9789052013749|last1=Detrez|first1=Raymond|last2=Segaert|first2=Barbara|year=2008|publisher=Peter Lang }}</ref> However ethnonyms never disappeared and some form of primary ethnic identity was available.<ref>Balkan cultural commonality and ethnic diversity. Raymond Detrez (Ghent University, Belgium).</ref> This is confirmed from a Sultan's ] from 1680 which describes the ethnic groups in the Balkan territories of the Empire as follows: Greeks, Albanians, Serbs, Vlachs and Bulgarians.<ref>История на българите. Късно средновековие и Възраждане, том 2, Георги Бакалов, TRUD Publishers, 2004, {{ISBN|9545284676}}, стр. 23. (Bg.)</ref>
Macedonians are people with a unique identity derived from an influence of different cultures. The large majority identify themselves as ], who speak a ], and share similarities in culture with their ] neighbours. However, the concept of a distinct "Macedonian" ethnicity is seen as a relatively new arrival to the millieu of peoples that is the Balkans. Any reference to Macedonians in medieval and early modern times was used as a regional description rather than a separate ethnic designation. Such examples include the Greek ] which at one stage ruled the ]. References have been made to ''Macedonian Slav'' rebellions against Byzantine rule <ref> The Balkans: From Constantinople to Communsism. D P Hupchik</ref>, but these have been interpreted by most scholars as non-specific, regional designations. The first ethnographic data pertaining to the Macedonian region as a whole emerged during ] rule. These censi lacked any reference attesting to a specific Macedonian identity, but only records the population as either Greek or Bulgarian, as well as other minorities - Turks, Aromanians, Jews, Albanians.


Throughout the Middle Ages and Ottoman rule up until the early 20th century<ref name="Woodhouse"/><ref name="macedonians"/><ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060723084106/http://www.greekhelsinki.gr/pdf/cedime-se-bulgaria-macedonians.PDF |date=23 July 2006 }}</ref> the Slavic-speaking population majority in the region of ] were more commonly referred to (both by themselves and outsiders) as ].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ppbuavUZKEwC&q=Who+are+the+Macedonians|title=Who are the Macedonians?|access-date=18 March 2015|isbn=9781850655343|last1=Poulton|first1=Hugh|year=2000|publisher=Hurst }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kroraina.com/knigi/im3/im_6_1.htm|title=Средновековни градови и тврдини во Македонија, Иван Микулчиќ, Македонска академија на науките и уметностите – Скопје, 1996, стр. 72.|access-date=18 March 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.kroraina.com/knigi/da/da_summary.htm|title=Formation of the Bulgarian nation (summary) |author=Academician Dimitŭr Simeonov Angelov |publisher=Sofia-Press |year=1978 |pages=413–415 |access-date=18 March 2015}}</ref> However, in pre-nationalist times, terms such as "Bulgarian" did not possess a strict ethno-nationalistic meaning, rather, they were loose, often interchangeable terms which could simultaneously denote regional habitation, allegiance to a particular empire, religious orientation, membership in certain social groups.{{efn|See:<ref>When Ethnicity Did Not Matter in the Balkans. J V A Fine. pp. 3–5.</ref><ref>Relexification Hypothesis in Rumanian. Paul Wexler. p. 170</ref><ref>Cumans and Tartars: Oriental military in the pre-Ottoman Balkans. Istvan Vasary. p. 18</ref><ref>Byzantium's Balkan Frontier. Paul Stephenson. p. 78–79</ref>}} Similarly, a "Byzantine" was a ''Roman'' subject of Constantinople, and the term bore no strict ethnic connotations, Greek or otherwise.<ref>The Edinburgh History of the Greeks; 500–1250: The Middle Ages. Florin Curta. 2013. p. 294 (echoing Anthony D Smith and Anthony Kaldellis) "no clear notion exists that the Greek nation survived into Byzantine times...the ethnic identity of those who lived in Greece during the Middle Ages is best described as Roman."</ref> Overall, in the Middle Ages, "a person's origin was distinctly regional",<ref>Mats Roslund. ''Guests in the House: Cultural Transmission Between Slavs and Scandinavians''; 2008. p. 79</ref> and in ], before the 19th-century ], it was based on the corresponding ].
Most of the ethnographers and travelers during ] rule identified the majority of the Slavic speakers as 'Bulgarians', as for example the 17th Century traveler ] in his ] - ''Book of Travels'', until the Ottoman census of ] in 1904 and later. Evidence also exists that certain Macedonian Slavs, particularly those in the northern regions, considered themselves Serbs. This continued until the period between ] and ] when the rival propaganda of the new established Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria succeeded in engaging the Slavophone population of Macedonia into three distinct parties, the pro-Serbian, the pro-Greek or the pro-Bulgarian one. The “],” became especially prominent after the ] in 1912-1913 and the subsequent division of Macedonia between the three neighboring states, followed by tensions between them over possession of Macedonia. This partitioning of the territory had a ''tremendous influence'' on the development of the ''Macedonian national identity''.<ref>Center for Documentation and Information on Minorities in Europe - Southeast Europe (CEDIME-SE)
MINORITIES IN SOUTHEAST EUROPE - Macedonians of Bulgaria, pg. 6 </ref> In order to legitimise their claims, each of these countries tried to 'persuade' the population into allegiance.<ref> Paul Fouracre. Cambridge Encyclopedia of Medieval History</ref>. These scientists argue also that the use of any ethnic definition of the Slav speekers in Macedonia during the 19th and early 20th Century did not refer to ethnicity, but rather a socio-occupational description. The Slav population in Macedonia tended to be Christian peasents, farming folk, <ref>The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World - Loring M. Danforth, ISBN13: 978-0-691-04356-2</ref> attested socio-political circumstances, such as in what language the local schooling was provided, or whether the local church alligned itself with ], ] or ] ]y. The majority were under the influence of the ] and its education system, thus in the early 20th century and beyond, were regarded as ''Bulgarians'', whatever that meant.(Brubaker 1996: 153; Ruhl 1916: 6; Perry in Lorrabee 1994: 61)
<ref>The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. </ref><ref>The Races and Religions of Macedonia, "National Geographic", Nov 1912. </ref><ref>Carnegie Endowment for International peace.REPORT OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION. To Inquire into the causes and Conduct OF THE BALKAN WARS, PUBLISHED BY THE ENDOWMENT WASHINGTON, D.C. 1914 </ref> After the establishment of P.R. Macedonia in 1944, the Yugoslav government began a policy of removing any Bulgarian influence and cementing a Macedonian identity.<ref>Europe since 1945. Encyclopedia by Bernard Anthony Cook. ISBN 0815340583, pg. 808.</ref> Today a mere 0.5% of the population identify as ].


The ] in the early 19th century brought opposition to this continued situation. At that time, the classical Rum Millet began to degrade. The coordinated actions, carried out by Bulgarian national leaders and supported by the majority of the Slavic-speaking population in today's Republic of North Macedonia (the second anti-Greek revolt was in Skopje) to have a separate "]", finally bore fruit in 1870 when a ] for the creation of the ] was issued.<ref>The A to Z of the Ottoman Empire, Selcuk Aksin Somel, Scarecrow Press, 2010, {{ISBN|1461731763}}, </ref> In September 1872, the Ecumenical Patriarch ] declared the Exarchate schismatic and ] its adherents, accusing them of having “surrendered Orthodoxy to ethnic nationalism”, i.e., "]" ({{langx|el|εθνοφυλετισμός}}).<ref>{{cite web|website=Orthodox History. The Orthodox Church in the Modern World|title=The Longest Schism in Modern Orthodoxy: Bulgarian Autocephaly & Ethnophyletism|last=Namee|first=Matthew|date=15 March 2022|url=https://orthodoxhistory.org/2022/03/15/the-longest-schism-in-modern-orthodoxy-bulgarian-autocephaly-ethnophyletism/}}</ref> At the time of its creation, the only Vardar Macedonian bishopric included in the Exarchate was ].<ref>{{cite web|last=Tashev|first=Spas|title=Facsimilise of Sultan's Firman with English Translation|url=http://www.promacedonia.org/en/turk/turk_2.html}}</ref>
Some scholars believe that the late development of a distinct Macedonian identity was the result of an oppressive and backward Turkish regime whose rule lasted the longest in the region of Macedonia. This was followed by tensions between Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece over possession of Macedonia. In order to legitimize their claims, each tried to 'persuade' the population into allegiance<ref> Paul Fouracre. Cambridge Encyclopedia of Medieval History</ref>. These scientists argue also that the use of any ethnic definition of the Slav speekers in Macedonia during the 19th and early 20th Century did not refer to ethnicity, but rather a socio-occupational description. The Slav population in Macedonia tended to be Christian peasents, farming folk, <ref>The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World - Loring M. Danforth, ISBN13: 978-0-691-04356-2</ref> attested socio-political circumstances, such as in what language the local schooling was provided, or whether the local church alligned itself with ], ] or ] ]y. The majority were under the influence of the ] and its education system, thus in the early 20th century and beyond, were regarded as ''Bulgarians'', whatever that meant.(Brubaker 1996: 153; Ruhl 1916: 6; Perry in Lorrabee 1994: 61)


However, in 1874, the Christian population of the ]s of ] and ] were given the chance to participate in a plebiscite, where they voted overwhelmingly in favour of joining the Exarchate (Skopje by 91%, Ohrid by 97%)<ref></ref><ref>The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian Liberation Movements, 1893–1903, Duncan M. Perry, Duke University Press, 1988, {{ISBN|0822308134}}, p. 15.</ref> Referring to the results of the plebiscites, and on the basis of statistical and ethnological indications, the ] included all of present-day North Macedonia (except for the Debar region) and parts of present-day Greek Macedonia.<ref>The A to Z of Bulgaria, Raymond Detrez, Scarecrow Press, 2010, {{ISBN|0810872021}}, p. 271.</ref> The borders of new Bulgarian state, drawn by the 1878 ], also included Macedonia, but the treaty was never put into effect and the ] "returned" Macedonia to the Ottoman Empire.
The national awakening of the ethnic Macedonians can be said to have begun in the late 19th century and early 20th century - this is the time of the first expressions of ] by limited groups of intellectuals in ], ], ], ] and ]. This period marks the beginning of the process of the construction of a Macedonian national identity and culture. However the key events in the formation of a distinctive Macedonian identity emerged during the first half of the 20th century in the aftermath of the ] of 1912-1913 when the ] discontinued its activity in most of the region. The process strengthed especially following the ], with the withdrawal of Bulgarian authorities from Macedonia, the establishment of Yugoslav Macedonian Republic and the signing of ]. With the founding of the ] in 1944 as part of ], a sense of a Macedonian national identity gained strength and became systematised.(Bell 1998:193)


For Christian Slav peasants, however, the choice between the Patriarchate and the Exarchate was not tainted with national meaning, but was a choice of Church or millet. Thus adherence to the Bulgarian national cause was attractive as a means of opposing oppressive Christian ] owners and urban merchants, who usually identified with the Greek nation, as a way to escape arbitrary taxation by ] bishops, via shifting allegiance to the ] and on account of the free (and, occasionally, even subsidized) provision of education in Bulgarian schools.<ref>{{cite book|first=Hans|last=Vermeulen|chapter=Greek cultural dominance among the Orthodox population of Macedonia during the last period of Ottoman rule|title=Cultural Dominance in the Mediterranean Area|editor1-first=Anton|editor1-last=Blok|editor2-first=Henk|editor2-last=Driessen|location=Nijmegen|url=https://www.academia.edu/1603900|pages=225–255|year=1984}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Gounaris|first=Basil G.|year=1995|title=Social Cleavages and National "Awakening" in Ottoman Macedonia|journal=East European Quarterly|volume=29|issue=4|pages=409–426}}</ref>
After the disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1991 and and declaring of ] of ] the “]” has again intensified. The issue primarily involves the Republic of Macedonia's neighbours, Greece and Bulgaria, who have been criticised by justice organisations for denying the existence of an independent ethnic Macedonian identity and the existince of ethnic Macedonian minorities on their territories. During the last few years, rising economic prosperity in Bulgaria has seen around 50,000 Macedonians applying for Bulgarian ]; in order to obtain it they must sign a statement declaring they are ''Bulgarian by origin'', effectively not recognising their rights as a minority.. All Bulgariаn governments justify this policy because they regard Macedonians as ''ethnopolitically disoriented Bulgarians.''<ref>Center for Documentation and Information on Minorities in Europe - Southeast Europe (CEDIME-SE)MINORITIES IN SOUTHEAST EUROPE - Macedonians of Bulgaria, pg. 33. </ref>. Greece has raised concerns about the activities of '']'', who propagate the idea of a ], i.e. bringing Greek and Bulgarian territories under the control of the Republic of Macedonia. As Basil Gounaris puts it: "Although a diplomatic solution to these issues is not impossible, a compromise is highly improbable as long as Macedonian history is analysed retrospectively in terms of rigid modern-day definitions of ethnicity." <ref> Encyclopedia of Greece & the Hellenic Tradition, Volume II, Editor: Graham Speake </ref>
Alignment of the Slavs of Macedonia with the Bulgarian, the Greek or sometimes the Serbian national camp did not imply adherence to different national ideologies: these camps were not stable, culturally distinct groups, but parties with national affiliations, described by contemporaries as "sides", "wings", "parties" or "political clubs".<ref>{{cite journal|last=Gounaris|first=Basil G.|year=1995|title=Social Cleavages and National "Awakening" in Ottoman Macedonia|journal=East European Quarterly|volume=29|issue=4|pages=409–426}}</ref>


=== Ancient period === ===Identity===


] is the first known person, who in 1875 put forward the idea on the existence of a separate (Slavic) Macedonian language and ethnicity.<ref>Roumen Daskalov, Alexander Vezenkov as ed., Entangled Histories of the Balkans – Volume Three: Shared Pasts, Disputed Legacies; Balkan Studies Library, BRILL, 2015; {{ISBN|9004290362}}, p. 454.</ref>]]
The region that today forms the Republic of Macedonia has been inhabited since Paleolithic times. What is now the modern ] was settled by the ] and ], peoples of mixed ] origin. The Paionians founded several princedoms which colalesced into a kingdom centered in the central and upper reaches of the ] and ] rivers. In 360-359 AD Paionian tribes were launching raids into ](] XVI. 2.5) in support of an ] invasion.
The first expressions of ] occurred in the second half of the 19th century mainly among intellectuals in ], ], ] and ].<ref>Loring M. Danforth, The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World, 1995, Princeton University Press, p. 56, {{ISBN|0-691-04356-6}}</ref> Since the 1850s some Slavic intellectuals from the area adopted the Greek designation ''Macedonian'' as a regional label, and it began to gain popularity.<ref name="Roumen Daskalov 2013">Roumen Daskalov, Tchavdar Marinov, Entangled Histories of the Balkans, Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies, BRILL, 2013, {{ISBN|900425076X}}, pp. 283–285.</ref> In the 1860s, according to ], some young intellectuals from Macedonia were claiming that they are not Bulgarians, but rather Macedonians, descendants of the Ancient Macedonians.<ref>] an article from 1871 by Slaveykov published in the newspaper Macedonia in ] he wrote: "We have many times heard from the Macedonists that they are not Bulgarians, but they are rather Macedonians, descendants of the Ancient Macedonians and we have always waited to hear some proofs of this, but we have never heard them."</ref> Slaveikov, himself with Macedonian roots,<ref>Соня Баева, Петко Славейков: живот и творчество, 1827–1870, Изд-во на Българската академия на науките, 1968, стр. 10.</ref> started in 1866 the publication of the newspaper '']''. Its main task was "to educate these misguided '']'' there", who he called also '']''.<ref>Речник на българската литература, том 2 Е-О. София, Издателство на Българската академия на науките, 1977. с. 324.</ref> In a letter written to the Bulgarian Exarch in February 1874 Petko Slaveykov reports that discontent with the current situation "has given birth among local patriots to the disastrous idea of working independently on the advancement of their ] and what's more, of their own, separate Macedonian church leadership."<ref>] written in ] in February 1874</ref> The activities of these people were also registered by the Serbian politician ],<ref>Балканска питања и мање историјско-политичке белешке о Балканском полуострву 1886–1905. Стојан Новаковић, Београд, 1906.</ref> who promoted the idea to use the ] in order to oppose the strong pro-Bulgarian sentiments in the area.<ref>"Since the Bulgarian idea, as it is well-known, is deeply rooted in Macedonia, I think it is almost impossible to shake it completely by opposing it merely with the Serbian idea. This idea, we fear, would be incapable, as opposition pure and simple, of suppressing the Bulgarian idea. That is why the Serbian idea will need an ally that could stand in direct opposition to Bulgarianism and would contain in itself the elements which could attract the people and their feelings and thus sever them from Bulgarianism. This ally I see in Macedonism...." except from the report of S. Novakovic to the Minister of Education in Belgrade in Cultural and Public Relations of the Macedonians with Serbia in the XIXth c., Skopje, 1960, p. 178.</ref> The nascent Macedonian nationalism, illegal at home in the theocratic Ottoman Empire, and illegitimate internationally, waged a precarious struggle for survival against overwhelming odds: in appearance against the Ottoman Empire, but in fact against the three expansionist Balkan states and their respective patrons among the great powers.<ref name="Rossos A. 2008">{{Cite book|url=http://research.policyarchive.org/11853.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190128222837/http://research.policyarchive.org/11853.pdf|archive-date=2019-01-28|title=Macedonia and the Macedonians: A History|publisher=Hoover Institution Press|first=Andrew|last=Rossos|author-link=Andrew Rossos|date=2008|isbn=978-0817948832|access-date=28 January 2019}}</ref>


The first known author that overtly speaks of a Macedonian nationality and language was ], who in 1875 published in Belgrade a ''Dictionary of Three languages: Macedonian, Albanian, Turkish'', in which he wrote that the Macedonians are a separate nation and the place which is theirs is called Macedonia.<ref>Rečnik od tri jezika: s. makedonski, arbanski i turski , U državnoj štampariji, 1875, p. 48f.</ref> In 1880, he published in Sofia a ''Grammar of the language of the Slavic Macedonian population'', a work that is today known as the first attempt at a grammar of Macedonian. However, he alternately described his language as "Serbo-Albanian"<ref>Речник от четири jазика. Ђ. Пулевски, Belgrade, 1873, p. 3</ref> and "Slavo-Macedonian"<ref>Rečnik od tri jezika: s. makedonski, arbanski i turski , U državnoj štampariji, 1875, p. 48f.</ref> and himself as a "Mijak from Galičnik",<ref>{{cite book|title=Papers in Slavic Philology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_A9hAAAAMAAJ|year=1984|publisher=University of Michigan|page=102|isbn = 9780930042592|quote=In 1875, Gorge M. Pulevski, who identifies himself as mijak galicki 'a mijak from Galicnik'}}</ref> a "Serbian patriot"<ref>{{cite book|last1=Daskalov|first1=Rumen|last2=Marinov|first2=Tchavdar|title=Entangled Histories of the Balkans: Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FGmJqMflYgoC|year=2013|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-25076-5|page=316}}</ref> and a "Bulgarian from the village of Galičnik",<ref>{{cite book|author=Chris Kostov|title=Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900–1996|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P-1m1FLtrvsC|year=2010|publisher=Peter Lang|isbn=978-3-0343-0196-1|page=67}}</ref><ref>Блаже Ристовски, "Портрети и процеси од македонската литературна и национална историја", том 1, Скопје: Култура, 1989 г., стр. 281, 283, 28.</ref> i.e. changing ethnicity multiple times during his lifetime.<ref>Per Srđan Todorov he began his public work as a Mijak and then became an "Old Serbian" patriot, went later to Bulgarian identity, and finally adopted a Macedonian one. For more see: Срђан Тодоров, О народности Ђорђа Пуљевског. В Етно-културолошки зборник, уредник Сретен Петровић, књига XXIII (2020) Сврљиг, УДК 929.511:821.163 (09); {{ISBN|978-86-84919-42-9}}, стр. 133-144.</ref> Therefore, his Macedonian self-identification is considered by historians to be inchoate<ref>Raymond Detrez (2014). Historical Dictionary of Bulgaria, Rowman & Littlefield, 2014, p. 67. {{ISBN|1442241802}}.</ref><ref>Chris Kostov (2010). Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900–1996. Peter Lang. p. 67. {{ISBN|978-3-0343-0196-1}}.</ref> and to resemble a regional phenomenon.<ref>Daskalov, Rumen; Marinov, Tchavdar (2013). Entangled Histories of the Balkans: Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies. BRILL. p. 213, {{ISBN|978-90-04-25076-5}}</ref> In 1885, ], a priest who held a high-ranking position within the ], was chosen as a bishop of the ] of ]. In 1890 he renounced de facto the Bulgarian Exarchate and attempted to restore the ] as a separate Macedonian Orthodox Church in all eparchies of ],<ref>Theodosius of Skopje Centralen D'rzhaven istoricheski archiv (Sofia) 176, op. 1. arh.ed. 595, l.5–42 – Razgledi, X/8 (1968), pp. 996–1000.</ref> responsible for the spiritual, cultural and educational life of all Macedonian Orthodox Christians.<ref name="Rossos A. 2008"/> During this time period Metropolitan Bishop ] made a plea to the Greek ] to allow a separate Macedonian church, and ultimately on 4 December 1891 he sent a ] to the Pope Leo XIII to ask for a ] and a ] from the Roman Catholic Church, but failed. Soon after, he repented and returned to pro-Bulgarian positions.<ref>Писмо на Теодосий до вестника на Българската екзархия "Новини" от 04.02.1892 г.</ref> In the 1880s and 1890s, ] designated Macedonian Slavs as "Macedonians" and "Old Slavic Macedonian people", and also distinguished them from Bulgarians as follows: "Slavic-Bulgarian" for Mažovski was synonymous with "Macedonian", while only "Bulgarian" was a designation for the Bulgarians in Bulgaria.<ref>Блаже Конески, Македонскиот XIX век. том 6, Составиле: Анастасија Ѓурчинова, Лидија Капушевска-ДракулевскаЫ Бобан Карапејовски, белешки и коментари: Георги Сталев, МАНУ, Скопје, 2020, стр. 72.</ref>
Under ] (359–336 BC), ], situated in what is now ], expanded into the territories of the neighbouring Paionians, Thracians, and Illyrians. Among this conquests he annexed the regions of ] and Southern ], which roughly corresponds to the most southern regions of ]. The kingdom of ], then ruled by ], adequatе approximately to the most of the territory of today ] was reduced to a semi-autonomous, subordinate status. Philip's son ] (356–323 BC) managed to briefly extend Macedonian power not only over the Balkans, but also to the ], including ] and lands as far east as the fringes of ], heralding the ].


In 1890, Austrian researcher of Macedonia Karl Hron reported that the Macedonians constituted a separate ethnic group by history and language. Within the next few years, this concept was also welcomed in Russia by linguists including ], ], ], and ].<ref>{{cite book |title=The Macedonian Question and the Macedonians |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TWYHEAAAQBAJ&dq=karl+hron+macedonia&pg=PA152 |author= ] |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=9781000289404 |year=2020 |page=152 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Politics of Terror |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OTxtAAAAMAAJ&q=hron |author=Duncan Perry |publisher=Duke University Press |year=1988 |page=20 | isbn=9780822308133 }}</ref> Draganov, of Bulgarian descent, conducted research in Macedonia and determined that the local language had its own identifying characteristics compared to Bulgarian and Serbian. He wrote in a Saint Petersburg newspaper that the Macedonians should be recognized by Russia in a full national sense.<ref>{{cite book |title=Lingua e nazionalità in Macedonia |year=1985 |author=Marco Dogo |publisher=Jaca Book |isbn=9788816950115 |page=50 |quote=In quella data aveva appunto fatto ritorno da una missione in Macedonia il filologo Draganov, di origine bulgaro-bassarabiana, i cui contributi scientifici avrebbero introdotto il pubblico colto della capitale russa all'esistenza di un'area linguistica slava, in quella regione dei Balcani, dotata di caratteri individuanti propri e non assimilabili a quelli serbi e bulgari; ancora in tempi recentissimi Draganov era intervenuto a sostenere, sulle colonne di un autorevole giornale di Petroburgo, il buon diritto degli Slavi macedoni - o meglio Macedoni nel pieno sneso nazionale, e non piu solo geografico, della parola - al riconoscimento da parte russa quale nazionalita a se stante ed anzi maggioritaria in casa propria, in Macedonia. }}</ref>
The ] was officially established in 146 BC, after the Roman general Quintus Caecilius Metellus defeated Andriscus of Macedon in 148 BC, and after the four client republics established by Rome in the region were dissolved. The province incorporated Epirus Vetus, Thessaly, and parts of Illyria and Thrace. In the 3rd century or 4th century, the province of Macedonia was divided into Macedonia Prima (in the south) and Macedonia Salutaris (in the north).


] leader ] in 1901 stated that Macedonians had a unique "national element" and, the following year, he stated "We the Macedonians are neither Serbs nor Bulgarians, but simply Macedonians... Macedonia exists only for the Macedonians." However after the failure of the Ilinden Uprising, Sarafov wanted to keep closer ties with Bulgaria, supporting the Bulgarian aspirations towards the area.<ref>, Keith Brown, Princeton University Press, 2003, {{ISBN|0691099952}}, p. 175</ref><ref>Mercia MacDermott, Freedom or Death, The Life of Gotsé Delchev, Journeyman Press, London & West Nyack, 1978, p. 379.</ref> ], another IMRO member, stated Macedonia was a "distinct moral unit" with its own "aspirations",<ref name="Heraclides">{{cite book |title=The Macedonian Question and the Macedonians |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dUYHEAAAQBAJ&dq=sarafov+%22neither%22&pg=PT74 |author= ] |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=9781000289404 |year=2020 }}</ref> while describing its Slavic population as Bulgarian.<ref>Information from a book by Gyorche Petrov on the ethnic composition of the population in Macedonia: ''The Macedonian population consists of Bulgarians, Turks, Albanians, Wallachians, Jews The total number of the population and that of each nationality cannot be defined exactly as there are no statistics... Bulgarians constitute the bulk of the population in the vilayet I am describing. In spite of all distortions in the official statistics, they again figure as more than half of the population. I could not personally collect any data about the number of the population, that is why I am not quoting figures. I made a description of the Bulgarian population in the section on Topography, that is why it is not necessary to repeat the same again or go into detail...'' (G. Petrov, Materials on the Study of Macedonia), Sofia, 1896, pp. 724-725, 731; the original is in Bulgarian. Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of History, Bulgarian Language Institute, Macedonia. Documents and materials, Sofia 1978, Document # 40.]</ref>
=== Arrival of Slavs ===
{{main|South Slavs}}
] and the Byzantine Empire (purple) during the ]]]


===National antagonisms and Macedonian separatism===
The Slavs entered the Balkan Peninsula in the 6th century AD, settling in the ] river basin. According to Procopious, the first attack on Byzantium took place in 523.
{{See also|Macedonian Question}}
====Macedonian separatism====
] in 1903 attempted to codify a standard Macedonian language and appealed for eventual recognition of a separate Macedonian nation when the necessary historical circumstances would arise.]]
In 1903, ] published in Sofia his book '']'', wherein he laid down the principles of the modern Macedonian nationhood and language. This book, written in the standardized ], is considered by ethnic Macedonians as a milestone of the process of Macedonian awakening. Misirkov argued that the dialect of central Macedonia (Veles-Prilep-Bitola-Ohrid) should be adopted as a basis for a standard Macedonian literary language, in which Macedonians should write, study, and worship; the autocephalous ] should be restored; and the Slavic people of Macedonia should be recognized as a separate ethnic community, when the necessary historical circumstances would arise.<ref>''The term 'project' tackles likewise the specific temporal orientation of the initial stage of formation of Macedonian ethnic nationalism: the Macedonian self-determination is seen by Misirkov as a future ideal and his national manifesto on the Macedonian Matters (Sofia, 1903) recognizes the lack of actual correlation between the concept of Macedonian Slavic ethnicity and the real self-identifications of the majority of Macedonian Slavs. In a rather demiurgical way, Misirkov is the first who exposes the basic 'ethnographic' characteristics of what he regards as 'inexistent' but 'possible' and 'necessary' Macedonian Slavic ethnicity''... Tchavdar Marinov, "Between Political Autonomism and Ethnic Nationalism: Competing Constructions of Modern Macedonian National Ideology (1878–1913)", p. 3.</ref>


However, throughout the book, Misirkov lamented that "no local Macedonian patriotism exists" and stated that the Slavic Macedonian population had always called itself "Bulgarian".<ref>''Misirkov lamented that "no local Macedonian patriotism" existed and would have to be created. He anticipated that Macedonians would respond to his proposal with a series of baffled questions: "What sort of new Macedonian nation can this be when we, and our fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers have always been called Bulgarians?...Macedonian as a nationality has never existed, and it does not exist now"... Misirkov answered by observing that national loyalties change with time: "What has not existed in the past may still be brought into existence later, provided that the appropriate historical circumstances arise... Misirkov in short wanted, the Ottoman state to promote Macedonian nation-building, calling for "official recognition".'' Region, Regional Identity and Regionalism in Southeastern Europe, Klaus Roth, Ulf Brunnbauer, LIT Verlag Münster, 2008, {{ISBN|3825813878}}, </ref> He also claimed that it was first the ] who starting calling the local Slavs "Bulgarians" because of their alliance with the ], during the incessant ] which in the eyes of the Byzantine Greeks eventually forged both Slavs and Bulgars into one people with a Bulgarian name and a Slavonic language.<ref>{{cite book|title=За македонцките работи|trans-title=On Macedonian Matters|last=Misirkov|first=Krste|location=Sofia|year=1903|page=117|url=https://www.strumski.com/books/Za%20Makedonckite%20raboti.pdf|quote=Словените од Бугариiа и Македониiа наi напред беа само соiузници на бугарите во воiните со Византиiа. Но соiузните со бугарите словенцки полчишча беа во очите на неприiателите т.е. византиiците пак бугарцки. Значит византиiците зафатиiа да прекрстуват словените ушче од времето на Аспарухоата орда. Постоiанната борба рамо за рамо со бугарите ѝ направи ниф iеден народ со бугарцко име, но со словенцки iазик|trans-quote=At first, the Slavs in Bulgaria and Macedonia were only allies of the Bulgars in the wars against Byzantium. Hоwever, due to the alliance with the Bulgars, the Slavic hordes appeared in the eyes of the adversary, i.e. the Byzantines, to be Bulgars too. So the Byzantines renamed the Slavs as early as the time of Asparuh's horde. Our constant fight side by side with the Bulgars made us into one people with a Bulgarian name but Slavonic language.}}</ref> Misirkov's primary motivation for a separate Macedonian nationhood and language was Serbia and Bulgaria's conflict over Macedonia, which according to Misirkov would eventually lead to its partition.<ref>{{cite book|title=За македонцките работи|trans-title=On Macedonian Matters|last=Misirkov|first=Krste|location=Sofia|year=1903|page=35|url=https://www.strumski.com/books/Za%20Makedonckite%20raboti.pdf}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=За македонцките работи|trans-title=On Macedonian Matters|last=Misirkov|first=Krste|location=Sofia|year=1903|language=en|url=http://www.misirkov.org/what_have_we_done.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080829163334/http://www.misirkov.org/what_have_we_done.htm |archive-date=29 August 2008 |quote=The uprising prevented Macedonia from being partitioned, and this is one of its more worthwhile results. But partition was luckily avoided thanks really to the fact that our enemies happened to be inept and inexperienced. If Bulgaria wanted to threaten us even more seriously in the future, when our enemies were more experienced, she might enter into an agreement with Serbia concerning the partition of Macedonia between the spheres of influence. This agreement between the spheres of influence would unfailingly lead to the partition of Macedonia. This is why one of the prime duties of the Macedonian intelligentsia is once and for all to drive Serbian and Bulgarian propaganda out of Macedonia so that Macedonia can establish its own spiritual centre, and free the Macedonians from this give and take relation with the neighboring Balkan states and peoples. Hence the need to forestall the partition of Macedonia and retain it as a province of Turkey}}</ref> Therefore, he argued, it would be better for both Macedonians and Bulgarians if there was a united Macedonian Macedonia than a partitioned Bulgarian one, where Bulgaria would not be allowed to go any further than the left bank of the Vardar.<ref>{{cite book|title=За македонцките работи|trans-title=On Macedonian Matters|last=Misirkov|first=Krste|location=Sofia|year=1903|page=105|url=https://www.strumski.com/books/Za%20Makedonckite%20raboti.pdf}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=За македонцките работи|trans-title=On Macedonian Matters|last=Misirkov|first=Krste|location=Sofia|year=1903|language=en|url=http://www.misirkov.org/can_macedonia.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080829162548/http://www.misirkov.org/can_macedonia.htm |archive-date=29 August 2008 |quote=The Macedonians and Bulgarians are now left with a choice between two possibilities: either Macedonia will be divided among the neighbouring Balkan states, which would mean a loss of two thirds of Macedonia both for the Bulgarians and for the Macedonians, or else all relations with Bulgaria will be severed and the Macedonian question will be regarded on a purely neutral, Macedonian basis. When necessity phrases the issue thus it is clear that the second choice is the one which will always be preferred by everybody, for what honest Macedonian patriot would be prepared to sacrifice Kostur, Lerin, Bitola, Ohrid, Resen, Prilep, Veles, Tetovo, Skopje, etc. for the unification of Macedonia up to the left bank of the River Vardar with Bulgaria?}}</ref> In 1905, he returned to a pro-Bulgarian stance and renounced the positions he espoused in '']''.<ref>{{cite book|author=Victor Roudometof|title=Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict: Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xoww453NVQMC&pg=PA112|year=2002|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-275-97648-4|page=112}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.promacedonia.org/bugarash/misirkov/misirkov.html |title=Проф. д-р Веселин Трайков – "Кръсте П. Мисирков и за българските работи в Македония", София, 2000, Издателство "Знание" |access-date=20 February 2013 |archive-date=18 July 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120718175719/http://www.promacedonia.org/bugarash/misirkov/misirkov.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Later in his life, Misirkov oscillated between a pro-Macedonist and ] stance, including controversially claimed that all Macedonian and ]s were, in fact, ].<ref>{{cite journal|journal=Българска сбирка|year=1910|location=Sofia|edition=XVII|volume=1|title=Бележки по южно-славянската филология и история|trans-title=Notes on South Slavic Philology and History|last=Misirkov|first=Krastyo|pages=39–47|language=bg|url=https://www.strumski.com/books/K_P_MIsirkov_Belezhki_po_Juzhnoslavianskata_Istoria_i_Filologia.pdf}}</ref>
By 581, many Slavic tribes had settled the land around ], though they did not capture the city itself, which was only saved, so the people of Thessalonica believed, by the help of their patron Demetrios. Archbishop John of Thessaloniki mentions an attack on the city by 5000 Slav warriors.<ref name="Florin Curta">The Making of the Slavs: History and Archaeology of the Lower Danube Region, C. 500-700 by Florin Curta, ISBN 0-521-80202-4</ref>. As John of Ephesus tells us in 581: “the accursed .. Slavs wandered across the whole of Greece, the lands of the Thessalonians and the whole of Thrace, taking many towns and forts, .. and making themselves rulers of the whole country”, creating a ''Macedonian Sclavinia''<ref>The new Cambridge Medieval History, Volume I, Editor Paul Fouracre </ref>. By 586, they took the western Peloponnese, Attica and Epirus, leaving only the east part of Peloponnese, which was mountainous and inaccessible.


Another major figure of the Macedonian awakening was ], one of the founders of the ], established in ] in 1902. One of the members was also Krste Misirkov. In 1905 the Society published ''Vardar'', the first scholarly, scientific and literary journal in the central dialects of Macedonia, which later would contribute in the standardization of ].<ref> </ref> In 1913, the Macedonian Literary Society submitted the ] to the British Foreign Secretary and other European ambassadors, and it was printed in many European newspapers. In the period 1913–1914, Čupovski published the newspaper ''Македонскi Голосъ (])'' in which he and fellow members of the Saint Petersburg Macedonian Colony propagated the existence of a Macedonian people separate from the Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbs, and sought to popularize the idea for an independent Macedonian state.
Initially the Slavic tribes retained independent rule with their own political structure. These units were referred to as ''Sclavenes''. Byzantine emperors tried to directly incorporate the Slavs of the ] into the socio-economic system of the Byzantine state, with varied success. The Thracian theme was returned to imperial rule in 680-681. However the Slavs of Greece and Macedonia proved more stubborn, and resisted Hellenization. Emperors Constans (656) and Justinian II (686) had to resort to military expeditions and forced re-settlement of large numbers of Slavs to Anatolia, forcing them to pay tribute and supply military aid to the empire. With the formation of the First Bulgarian Empire, the remaining Sclavenes were incorporated into the Bulgarian Empire, as was the entire ], thus cementing the Slavic character of the area.


====The "Macedonian Slavs" in cartography====
Despite the raiding and looting, many local populations willingly assimilated with the Slavs. Additionally, the slavs actively incorporated prisoners into their ranks <ref> Medieval Encyclopedia, VOlume II</ref>. ] is a term used to describe this cultural and linguistical change in which non-Slavic peoples becomes Slavic. The term here is used in connection with the Greeks, Hellenized and Romanized Thracians, Paionians and Illyrians on the territory of Macedonia, which fell in Slavic sphere of influence after arrival of the Slavs. Thus the settlement of Macedonia by southern Slavs was not only a destructive wave of invasion. Analysis of anthropological evidence and material culture demonstrates the significant biological and cultural contribution of previous populations of these territories in the formation of what would become modern Macedonians. Remains dating back to the 6th century represent a specific mixture of Slavic, Illyrian, Thracian and Byzantine elements.
From 1878 until 1918, most independent European observers viewed the ] as Bulgarians or as Macedonian Slavs, while their association with Bulgaria was almost universally accepted.<ref>{{harvnb|Demeter|Bottlik|2021|p=114}}.</ref> Original manuscript versions of population data mentioned "Macedonian Slavs", though the term was changed to "Bulgarians" in the official printing.<ref>{{harvnb|Demeter|Bottlik|2021|p=199}}.</ref> Western publications usually presented the Slavs of Macedonia as Bulgarians, as happened, partly for political reasons, in Serbian ones.<ref>{{harvnb|Demeter|Bottlik|2021|p=95}}.</ref> Prompted by the publication of a Serbian map by ] claiming the Slavs of Macedonia as ], a version of a Russian map, published in 1891, in a period of deterioration of ], first presented Macedonia inhabited not by Bulgarians, but by Macedonian Slavs.<ref>{{harvnb|Demeter|Bottlik|2021|p=96, 93}}.</ref> Austrian-Hungarian maps followed suit in an effort to delegitimize the ambitions of Russophile Bulgaria, returning to presenting the Macedonian Slavs as Bulgarians when Austria-Bulgaria relations ameliorated, only to renege and employ the designation "Macedonian Slavs" when Bulgaria changed its foreign policy and Austria turned to envisaging an autonomous Macedonia under Austrian influence within the ].<ref>{{harvnb|Demeter|Bottlik|2021|p=96, 105}}.</ref>


The term "Macedonian Slavs" was used either as a middle solution between conflicting Serbian and Bulgarian claims, to denote an intermediary grouping of Slavs, associated with the Bulgarians, or to describe a separate Slavic group with no ethnic, national or political affiliation.<ref>{{harvnb|Demeter|Bottlik|2021|p=114}}.</ref> The differentiation of ethnographic maps representing rival national views produced to satisfy the curiosity of European audience for the inhabitants of Macedonia, after the ] of 1903, indicated the complexity of the issue.<ref>{{harvnb|Wilkinson|1951|p=133-4}}.</ref> Influenced by the conclusions of the research of young Serb ], that Macedonia's culture combined ] with Serbian traditions, a map of 1903 by Austrian cartographer ] depicted Macedonia as a peculiar area, where zones of linguistic influence overlapped.<ref>{{harvnb|Wilkinson|1951|p=134-5}}.</ref> In his first ethnographic map of 1906, Cvijic presented all Slavs of Serbia and Macedonia merely as "Slavs".<ref>{{harvnb|Wilkinson|1951|p=146-88}}.</ref> In a pamphlet translated and circulated in Europe the same year, he elaborated his ostensibly impartial views and described the Slavs living south of the ] and ] mountains as "Macedo-Slavs" arguing that the appellation "Bugari" meant simply "peasant" to them, that they had no national consciousness and could become Serbs or Bulgarians in the future.<ref>{{harvnb|Wilkinson|1951|p=148-50}}.</ref> Cvijić thus transformed the political character of the ]'s appeals to "Macedonians" into an ethnic one.<ref>{{harvnb|Wilkinson|1951|p=151}}.</ref> Bulgarian cartographer ] countered Cvijić's views, pointing to the involvement of Macedonian Slavs in Bulgarian nationalist uprisings and the Macedonian origins of Bulgarian nationalists before 1878. Although Cvijic's arguments attracted the attention of Great Powers, they did not endorse at the time his view on the Macedo-Slavs.<ref>{{harvnb|Wilkinson|1951|p=152-3}}.</ref>
=== Arrival of Bulgars ===
{{main|Bulgars}}


<gallery class="center">
]".]] From ] the Bulgars carried out frequent attacks on the western territories of the ]. Later raids were carried out at the end of the ] and the beginning of the ]. After several centuries of ] raids against Byzantium, around ] a group of Bulgars led by Bulgarian Khan ] settled in the region of ]. He was the brother of Khan ], who founded the Danubian Bulgarian state in ], known as ]. In the following decades these Bulgars launched campaigns against the Byzantine city of ] and established contacts with Danubian Bulgaria.<ref name="Иван Микулчиќ">"Средновековни градови и тврдини во Македониjа", Скопjе, "Македонска цивилизациjа", 1996 (Macedonian). Part of the book .</ref> By the early 9th century the lands that Kuber settled had been incorporated into the First Bulgarian Empire.
File:Ethnographic map of the central Balkans, ca. 1900.png|Austrian ethnographic map of the vilayets of Kosovo, Saloniki, Scutari, Janina and Monastir, ca. 1900.
The archaeologist from Republic of Macedonia, Ivan Mikulchik, revealed the presence not only of the Kuber group, but the whole later ] archaeological culture throughout Macedonia.
File:Ethnographic Map of Central and South Eastern Europe.jpg|Ethnographical Map of Central and Southeastern Europe - ], London (1916)
File:Cvijic, Jovan - Breisemeister, William A. - Carte ethnographique de la Péninsule balkanique (pd).jpg|Ethnographic map of the Balkans from the Serbian author Jovan Cvijic (1918)
File:Hellenism in the Near East 1918.jpg|Greek map by Georgios Sotiriadis submitted to the Paris Peace Conference (1919)
File:Macedonians coloured on this map from 1922.jpg|Ethnographic map of the Balkans in the ''New ] History'' (1922)
</gallery>


Cvijić further elaborated the idea that had first appeared in Peucker's map and in his map of 1909 he ingeniously mapped the Macedonian Slavs as a third group distinct from Bulgarians and Serbians, and part of them "under Greek influence".<ref>{{harvnb|Demeter|Bottlik|2021|p=118}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Wilkinson|1951|p=135, 164}}.</ref> Envisioning a future agreement with Greece, Cvijic depicted the southern half of the Macedo-Slavs "under Greek unfluence", while leaving the rest to appear as a subset of the Serbo-Croats.<ref>{{harvnb|Wilkinson|1951|p=164-5}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Demeter|Bottlik|2021|p=118}}.</ref> Cvijić's view was reproduced without acknowledgement by ], with no effect on British opinion,<ref>{{harvnb|Demeter|Bottlik|2021|p=121}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Wilkinson|1951|p=166}}.</ref> but, reflecting the reorientation of Serbian aims towards dividing Macedonia with Greece, Cvijić eliminated the Macedo-Slavs from a subsequent edition of his map.<ref>{{harvnb|Demeter|Bottlik|2021|p=119}}.</ref> However, in 1913, before the conclusion of the ] he published his third ethnographic map distinguishing the Macedo-Slavs between ] and ] from both Bulgarians and ], on the basis of the transitional character of their dialect per the linguistic researches of ] and ], and the Serb features of their customs, such as the ].<ref>{{harvnb|Wilkinson|1951|p=172, 175, 177}}.</ref> For Cvijić, the Macedo-Slavs were a transitional population, with any sense of nationality they displayed being weak, superficial, externally imposed and temporary.<ref>{{harvnb|Wilkinson|1951|p=177-8}}.</ref> Despite arguing that they should be considered neutral, he postulated their division into Serbs and Bulgarians based on dialectical and cultural features in anticipation of Serbian demands regarding the delimitation of frontiers.<ref>{{harvnb|Wilkinson|1951|p=178-9}}.</ref>
=== Christianization and adopting of Cyrillic alphabet ===


A Balkan committee of experts rejected Cvijić's concept of the Macedo-Slavs in 1914.<ref>{{harvnb|Wilkinson|1951|p=203}}.</ref> However, Bulgaria's entry into World War I on the side of the ] in 1915, after the Allies failed to convince Serbia to hand over the ''‘]’'' in Macedonia to Bulgaria, precipitated a complete turnaround in the Allies' opinion of Macedonian ethnography, and several British and French maps echoing Cvijić were released within months.{{sfnp|Wilkinson|1951|pp=215, 221, 223}} Thus, as the ] approached victory in the ], a number other maps and atlases, including those produced by the ] replicated Cvijić's ideas, especially its depiction of the Macedo-Slavs.<ref>{{harvnb|Wilkinson|1951|p=181-2}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Demeter|Bottlik|2021|p=129-30}}.</ref> The prevalence of the ] point of view, obliged ], a professor of History at the ], to map the Macedo-Slavs as a distinct group in his work of 1918, that mirrored Greek views of the time and was used as an official document to advocate for Greece's positions in the ].<ref>{{harvnb|Wilkinson|1951|p=192-3}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Demeter|Bottlik|2021|p=122}}.</ref> After World War I, Cvijić's map became the point of reference for all Balkan ethnographic maps,<ref>{{harvnb|Wilkinson|1951|p=172}}.</ref> while his concept of Macedo-Slavs was reproduced in almost all maps,<ref>{{harvnb|Wilkinson|1951|p=203}}.</ref> including German maps, that acknowledged a Macedonian nation.<ref>{{harvnb|Demeter|Bottlik|2021|p=130}}.</ref>
The historical phenomenon of ], the conversion of individuals to Christianity or the conversion of entire peoples at once, also includes the practice of converting pagan practices, pagan religious imagery, pagan sites and the pagan calendar to Christian uses. After ] was declared a Christian Empire by ] in 389, laws were passed against pagan practices over the course of the following years. The Slavic tribes in Macedonia accepted the Christianity as their own religion around the 9th century mainly during the reign of prince ].The ] was the process of converting 9th-century medieval Bulgaria to Christianity as ].


===Macedonian Nationalism and Interwar Communism===
The creators of the ] were the Byzantine Greek monks ] and ]. Under the guidance of the ] at ] they were promoters of Christianity and initiated Slavic literacy among the Slavic people. They developed their alphabet from their extensive knowledge of the local Slavic dialect spoken in the hinterland of ],<ref> THe Balkans. From Constantinople to Communsims. Dennis P Hupchik</ref> which became the basis for ], the first literary Slavic language. Their work was accepted in early medieval ] and continued by the St. ], creator of ] and St.] as founders of the ]. Cyril and Methodius evangelized from Constantinople into the Balkans<ref name="Bowland">What Does the Future Hold for Mankind by R A Bowland, ISBN 1-4010-4043-8</ref> In the legacy of Cyril and Methodious, carried on by Clement and Naum, the development of Slav literacy was crucial in preventing assimilation of the Slavs either by cultures to the North or by the Greek culture to the south.<ref name="Hugh Poulton">Who Are the Macedonians?, Page 19, by Hugh Poulton, ISBN 1-85065-534-0</ref>
After the ] (1912–1913) and the World War I (1914–1918), following the division of the region of ] amongst the ], the ] and the ], the idea of belonging to a separate Macedonian nation was further spread among the Slavic-speaking population. The suffering during the wars, the endless struggle of the Balkan monarchies for dominance over the population increased the Macedonians' sentiment that the institutionalization of an independent Macedonian nation would put an end to their suffering. On the question of whether they were Serbs or Bulgarians, the people more often started answering: "Neither Bulgar, nor Serb... I am Macedonian only, and I'm sick of war."<ref>Историја на македонската нација. Блаже Ристовски, 1999, Скопје.</ref><ref>"On the Monastir Road". Herbert Corey, ''National Geographic'', May 1917 ()</ref> ] noted a specific instance of a Slav-speaking family wanting to be referred to, not as ''"Bulgar, Srrp, or Grrts"'', but as ''"Makedon ortodox"''.<ref>When narrating, in his autobiographical anti-war novel ''Life in Tomb'', his convalescence in the house of a family of farmers in ], a Slav-speaking patriarchist village near Bitola/Monastir, during his participation in the ] of World War I, Greek novelist ] wrote of its inhabitants that they "do not want to be 'Bulgar', neither 'Srrp', nor 'Grrc'. Only 'Makedon Ortodox'". See: {{cite news|last=Μυριβήλης|first=Στράτης|date=1923-09-25|access-date=2022-07-11|script-title=el:Ἡ Ζωὴ ἐν τάφῳ. Κεφάλαιο ιζ΄|script-newspaper=el:Καμπάνα|url=http://invenio.lib.auth.gr/record/46755/files/arc-2006-17817.pdf#page=4}}{{cite journal |script-title=el:Στράτης Μυριβήλης: Από το Βλάντοβο στη Βελουσίνα, 1924-1955 |url=https://www.academia.edu/43134400|first=Μαρία|last=Μανδαμαδιώτου|journal=Λεσβιακό Ημερολόγιο 2019, Σελ. 93-104}} {{cite book|title=Spotlights on Russian and Balkan Slavic Cultural History|chapter=Naming the Other: From "Greek Bulgarians" to "Local Macedonians"|author=Tasos Kostopoulos|editor1=Alexandra Ioannidou |editor2=Christian Voß|year=2009|location=Munich/Berlin |publisher=Verlag Otto Sagner|page=108}} {{cite book|last=Mackridge|first=Peter|year=2009|title=Language and National Identity in Greece, 1776-1796|url=https://archive.org/details/languagenational00mack|location=Oxford|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=|isbn=978-0-19-921442-6 }} On Velusina's population, see also: {{cite book|author=Brancoff, D.M.|title=La Macédoine et sa Population Chrétienne|location=Παρίσι|year=1905|pages=168–169|url=https://archive.org/stream/lamacdoineetsap01mishgoog#page/n183/mode/2up}} </ref> By the 1920s, following a negative reaction to the national proselytization of the previous decades, a majority of Christian ] and ] used the collective name "Macedonians" to describe themselves, either as a nation or as a distinct ethnicity.<ref>{{cite book|first=Nada|last=Boškovska|title=Yugoslavia and Macedonia Before Tito: Between Repression and Integration|location=London / New York|publisher=I. B. Tauris|year=2017|pages=5–10}}</ref> The 1928 Greek census recorded 81,844 ] speakers, distinct from 16,755 Bulgarian speakers.<ref name="George">Mavrogordatos, George. ''Stillborn Republic: Social Coalitions and Party Strategies in Greece, 1922–1936''. University of California Press, 1983. {{ISBN|9780520043589}}, p. 227, 247</ref> In 1924 the '']'' was signed between Greece and Bulgaria, concerning the protection of the Bulgarian minority In Greece. However, it was not ratified by the Greek side, because public opinion stood against the recognition of any “Bulgarian” minority".<ref><Michailidis, Iakovos D. (1996). "Minority Rights and Educational Problems in Greek Interwar Macedonia: The Case of the Primer "Abecedar"". Journal of Modern Greek Studies. 14 (2): 329–343.</ref> Prior to the 1930s, "it seems to have been acceptable" for Greeks to refer to Slavophones of Macedonia as Macedonians and their language as Macedonian. ] had argued this viewpoint.
The introduction of Slavic liturgy paralleled Boris' continued development of churches and monasteries throughout his realm.


] played a crucial role in the adoption of the ] that, for the first time by an international organization, recognized the existence of a separate Macedonian nation, in 1934]]
=== Middle ages ===
The consolidation of an international Communist organization (the ]) in the 1920s led to some failed attempts by the Communists to use the ] as a political weapon. In the 1920 Yugoslav parliamentary elections, 25% of the total Communist vote came from Macedonia, but participation was low (only 55%), mainly because the pro-Bulgarian IMRO organised a boycott against the elections. In the following years, the communists attempted to enlist the pro-IMRO sympathies of the population in their cause. In the context of this attempt, in 1924 the Comintern organized the filed signing of the so-called ], in which independence of partitioned Macedonia was required.<ref>Victor Roudometof, ''Nationalism, Globalization, and Orthodoxy: The Social Origins of Ethnic Conflict in the Balkans (Contributions to the Study of World History)'', Praeger, 2001, p.187</ref> In 1925 with the help of the Comintern, the ] was created, composed of former left-wing ] (IMRO) members. This organization promoted for the first time in 1932 the existence of a separate ethnic Macedonian nation.<ref>The Situation in Macedonia and the Tasks of IMRO (United) – published in the official newspaper of IMRO (United), "Македонско дело", N.185, April 1934.</ref><ref>Произходът на македонската нация - Стенограма от заседание на Македонския Научен Институт в София през 1947 г.</ref><ref>''...Да, тоа е точно. И не само Димитар Влахов. Павел Шатев, Панко Брашнаров, Ризо Ризов и др. Меѓутоа, овде тезата е погрешно поставена. Не е работата во тоа дали левицата се определуваше за Србија, а десницата за Бугарија. Тука се мешаат поимите. Практично, ни левицата ни десницата не ја доведуваа во прашање својата бугарска провениенција. Тоа ќе го доведе дури и Димитар Влахов во 1948 година на седница на Политбирото, кога говореше за постоењето на македонска нација, да рече дека во 1931-1932 година е направена грешка. Сите тие ветерани останаа само на нивото на политички, а не и на национален сепаратизам...'' Акад. Иван Катарџиев. "Верувам во националниот имунитет на македонецот". мега-интервју за списание "Форум", архива број 329, Скопје, 22.07.2000.</ref> In 1933 the ], in a series of articles published in its official newspaper, the '']'', criticizing Greek minority policy towards Slavic-speakers in Greek Macedonia, recognized the Slavs of the entire region of Macedonia as forming a distinct Macedonian ethnicity and their language as Macedonian.<ref>{{Cite journal |title="Η Μακεδονία κάτω από το ζυγό της ελληνικής κεφαλαιοκρατίας". Ένα ρεπορτάζ του Ριζοσπάστη στις σλαβόφωνες περιοχές (1933) |journal=Αρχειοτάξιο |url=https://www.academia.edu/12612739 |language=el |last=Κωστόπουλος |first=Τάσος |volume=11 |pages=12–13 |year=2009}}</ref> The idea of a Macedonian nation was internationalized and backed by the Comintern which issued in 1934 a ].<ref>Резолюция о македонской нации (принятой Балканском секретариате Коминтерна&nbsp;— Февраль 1934 г, Москва.</ref> This action was attacked by the IMRO, but was supported by the ] communists. The Balkan communist parties supported the national consolidation of the ethnic Macedonian people and created Macedonian sections within the parties, headed by prominent IMRO (United) members.


===World War II and Yugoslav nation-state building===
During most of Late Antiquity and the early Middles ages Macedonia (as a region) had been a province of the ]. In the 6th century AD, the part which today forms the Greek province of Macedonia was known as Macedonia Prima (first Macedonia), and contained the Empire's second largest city, ]. The rest of the modern region (today's Republic of Macedonia and Western Bulgaria) was known as ]. In the early 9th century, most of the region of Macedonia (excluding the area of Thessaloniki), as well as large parts of the Balkan peninsula, were incorporated into the ]. With the defeat of the Bulgarian empire by Byzantium, in the late 10th century the eastern part of the Bulgrian empire and its capital ] were annexed into the Byzanine Empire. The eastern part continued to be independent, and was ruled by ], who saw himself as the successor of the Bulgarian Empire. Samuil ruled his kingdom from the island of St. Achilles in ]. He was crowned in Rome in 997 as Tsar of ] by ]. The remains of his castle are still present in the city of Ohrid. Under Samuil, the fortunes of the empire and the great military rivalry against ] were once more revived, albeit temporarily. However, Samuil’s army was soundly defeated in 1014 by ], emperor of Byzantium, and four years later Bulgarian Empire fell once again under ] control. The character of Samuil has taken mythical status in folklore of Macedonian people, seeing him as a local King who struggled against Greek hegemony.
The sense of belonging to a separate Macedonian nation gained credence during World War II when ethnic Macedonian communist partisan detachments were formed. In 1943 the Communist Party of Macedonia was established and the resistance movement grew up.<ref>Nation, R.C. (1996). A Balkan Union? Southeastern Europe in Soviet Security Policy, 1944–8. In: Gori, F., Pons, S. (eds) The Soviet Union and Europe in the Cold War, 1943–53. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 125–143.</ref><ref>Marinov, Tchavdar & Vezenkov, Alexander. (2014). 6. Communism and Nationalism in the Balkans: Marriage of Convenience or Mutual Attraction?. in R. Daskalov, D. Mishkova, Tch. Marinov, A. Vezenkov,
Entangled Histories of the Balkans. Vol. 4: Concepts, Approaches, and (Self-)Representations (Brill, 2017), pp. 440-593.</ref> On the other hand, due to the different trajectories of Macedonian Slavs in the three nation-states that ruled the region, the designation "Macedonian" acquired different meanings for them by the time of the ] in the 1940s. According to historian ] those who came from the Bulgarian part or were members of the IMRO (United) practically felt themselves as Bulgarians, while those who had experienced Serbian rule and had interacted with the Croatian and Slovenian national movements within Yugoslavia had developed a stronger Macedonian consciousness.<ref>{{lang|mk|... Поделбата на Македонија 1913 година одигра извонредно штетна улога во свеста на Македонецот. Зошто? Затоа што ја прекина нормалната комуникација-политичка, културна, економска - меѓу Македонците. Го прекина процесот на создавање на единствена македонска историја на целиот македонски простор. Македонските прогресивни сили ги врза за прогресивните сили на земјите во коишто опстојуваа. Тие почнаа да ја прифаќаат политичката определба и филозофија на земјите меѓу кои Македонија беше поделена. Така, во текот на НОБ, кога дојде времето за поврзување, постоеше огромен јаз во свеста на Македонецот од трите дела на земјата. Сите велеа дека се Македонци, ама сите на тој поим му даваа поинаква содржина. Кои доаѓаа од Бугарија, тие сметаа дека треба да дојдат на чело и да ја водат Македонија, особено ветераните како Шатев и Влахов. Тие, практично, се чувствуваа како Бугари. ВМРО (Об.) не мрдна од обичниот политички македонски сепаратизам. Во Вардарска Македонија, пак, благодарејќи на српското ропство, тече процес на самоизразување низ литературата. Треба да се признае фактот дека постоењето на хрватско и на словенечко движење во Кралска Југославија придонесе македонското национално движење да се осознава многу подлабоко. Оттаму, појавувањето на весници како Луч во 1937 година, во кои доаѓа до израз теоријата за македонската национална самобитност... Акад. Иван Катарџиев. "Верувам во националниот имунитет на македонецот". мега-интервју за списание "Форум", архива број 329, Скопје, 22.07.2000 г.}}</ref> After the World War II ethnic Macedonian institutions were created in the three parts of the region of Macedonia, then under communist control,<ref name="Barbara Jelavich">History of the Balkans, Vol. 2: Twentieth Century. Barbara Jelavich, 1983.</ref> including the establishment of the ] within the ] (SFRJ).
] was the first president of the ] after the ].]]
The available data indicates that despite the policy of assimilation, pro-Bulgarian sentiments among the Macedonian Slavs in Yugoslavia were still sizable during the interwar period.{{efn|See:<ref>"Within Greece, and also within the new kingdom of Yugoslavia, which Serbia had joined in 1918, the ejection of the Bulgarian church, the closure of Bulgarian schools, and the banning of publication in Bulgarian, together with the expulsion or flight to Bulgaria of a large proportion of the Macedonian Slav intelligentsia, served as the prelude to campaigns of forcible cultural and linguistic assimilation...In both countries, these policies of de-bulgarization and assimilation were pursued, with fluctuating degrees of vigor, right through to 1941, when the Second World War engulfed the Balkan peninsula. The degree of these policies' success, however, remains open to question. The available evidence suggests that Bulgarian national sentiment among the Macedonian Slavs of Yugoslavia and Greece remained strong throughout the interwar period, though they lacked the means to offer more than passive resistance to official policies." For more see: F. A. K. Yasamee, Nationality in the Balkans: The case of the Macedonians. Balkans: A Mirror of the New World Order, Istanbul: Eren Publishing, 1995; pp. 121–132.</ref><ref>"As in Kosovo, the restoration of Serbian rule in 1918, to which the Strumica district and several other Bulgarian frontier salients accrued in 1919 (Bulgaria also having lost all its Aegean coastline to Greece), marked the replay of the first Serbian occupation (1913–1915). Once again, the Exarchist clergy and Bulgarian teachers were expelled, all Bulgarian-language signs and books removed, and all Bulgarian clubs, societies, and organizations dissolved, The Serbianization of family surnames proceeded as before the war, with Stankov becoming Stankovic and Atanasov entered in the books by Atanackovic... Thousands of Macedonians left for Bulgaria. Though there were fewer killings of "Bulgarians" (a pro-Bulgarian source claimed 342 such instances and 47 additional disappearances in 1918 – 1924), the conventional forms of repression (jailings, internments etc.) were applied more systematically and with greater effect than before (the same source lists 2,900 political arrests in the same period)... Like Kosovo, Macedonia was slated for Serb settlements and internal colonization. The authorities projected the settlement of 50,000 families in Macedonia, though only 4,200 families had been placed in 280 colonies by 1940." For more see: Ivo Banac, "The National Question in Yugoslavia. Origins, History, Politics" The Macedoine, Cornell University Press, 1984; {{ISBN|0801416752}}, pp. 307–328.</ref><ref>Yugoslav Communists recognized the existence of a Macedonian nationality during WWII to quiet fears of the Macedonian population that a communist Yugoslavia would continue to follow the former Yugoslav policy of forced Serbianization. Hence, for them to recognize the inhabitants of Macedonia as Bulgarians would be tantamount to admitting that they should be part of the Bulgarian state. For that the Yugoslav Communists were most anxious to mold Macedonian history to fit their conception of Macedonian consciousness. The treatment of Macedonian history in Communist Yugoslavia had the same primary goal as the creation of the Macedonian language: to de-Bulgarize the Macedonian Slavs, and to create a national consciousness that would inspire identification with Yugoslavia. For more see: Stephen E. Palmer, Robert R. King, Yugoslav communism and the Macedonian question, Archon Books, 1971, {{ISBN|0208008217}}, Chapter 9: The encouragement of Macedonian culture.</ref><ref>The Serbianization of the Vardar region ended and Yugoslavization was not introduced either; rather, a policy of cultural, linguistic, and "historical" Macedonization by de-Bulgarianization was implemented, with immediate success. For more see: Irina Livezeanu and Arpad von KlimoThe Routledge as ed. History of East Central Europe since 1700, Routledge, 2017, {{ISBN|1351863428}}, p. 490.</ref><ref>In Macedonia, post-WWII generations grew up "overdosed" with strong anti-Bulgarian sentiment, leading to the creation of mainly negative stereotypes for Bulgaria and its nation. The anti-Bulgariansim (or Bulgarophobia) increased almost to the level of state ideology during the ideological monopoly of the League of Communists of Macedonia, and still continues to do so today, although with less ferocity... However, it is more important to say openly that a great deal of these anti-Bulgarian sentiments result from the need to distinguish between the Bulgarian and the Macedonian nations. Macedonia could confirm itself as a state with its own past, present and future only through differentiating itself from Bulgaria. For more see: Mirjana Maleska. With the eyes of the "other" (about Macedonian-Bulgarian relations and the Macedonian national identity). In New Balkan Politics, Issue 6, pp. 9–11. Peace and Democracy Center: "Ian Collins", Skopje, Macedonia, 2003. ISSN 1409-9454.</ref><ref>After WWII in Macedonia the past was systematically falsified to conceal the fact that many prominent 'Macedonians' had supposed themselves to be Bulgarians, and generations of students were taught the pseudo-history of the Macedonian nation. The mass media and education were the key to this process of national acculturation, speaking to people in a language that they came to regard as their Macedonian mother tongue, even if it was perfectly understood in Sofia. For more see: Michael L. Benson, Yugoslavia: A Concise History, Edition 2, Springer, 2003, {{ISBN|1403997209}}, p. 89.</ref><ref>Once specifically Macedonian interests came to the fore under the Yugoslav communist umbrella and in direct confrontation with the Bulgarian occupation authorities (during WWII), the Bulgarian part of the identity of Vardar Macedonians was destined to die out – in a process similar to the triumph of Austrian over German-Austrian identity in post-war years. Drezov K. (1999) Macedonian identity: an overview of the major claims. In: Pettifer J. (eds) The New Macedonian Question. St Antony's Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London; {{ISBN|978-0-333-92066-4}}, p. 51.</ref><ref>Additionally, some 100,000 people were imprisoned in the post-1944 period for violations of the law for the "protection of Macedonian national honor," and some 1,260 Bulgarian sympathizers were allegedly killed. (Troebst, 1997: 248–50, 255–57; 1994: 116–22; Poulton, 2000: 118–19). For more see: Roudometof, Victor, Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict: Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question, Praeger Publishers, 2002. {{ISBN|0-275-97648-3}}, p. 104.</ref>}} However, if the Yugoslavians would recognize the Slavic inhabitants of Vardar Macedonia as Bulgarians, it would mean that the area should be part of Bulgaria. Practically in ] Macedonia, Yugoslavia's state policy of forced ] was changed with a new one — of ]. The codification of Macedonian and the recognition of the Macedonian nation had the main goal: finally to ban any ] among the Macedonians and to build a new consciousness, based on identification with Yugoslavia. As a result, Yugoslavia introduced again an abrupt ''de-Bulgarization'' of the people in the ], such as it already had conducted in the ] during the ]. Bulgarian sources claim around 100,000 pro-Bulgarian elements were imprisoned for violations of the special '']'', and over 1,200 were allegedly killed.<ref>Bulgarian sources assert that thousands lost their lives due to this cause after 1944 , and that more than 100 , 000 people were imprisoned under the law for the protection of Macedonian national honour 'for opposing the new ethnogenesis'. 1,260 leading Bulgarians were allegedly killed in Skopje, Veles, Kumanovo, Prilep, Bitola and Stip... For more see: Hugh Poulton, Who are the Macedonians? C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2000, {{ISBN|1850655340}}, p. 118.</ref><ref>John Phillips, Macedonia: Warlords and Rebels in the Balkans. (2004) I.B. Tauris (publisher), {{ISBN|186064841X}}, p. 40.</ref> In this way generations of students grew up educated in a strong anti-Bulgarian sentiment which during the times of ], increased to the level of ]. Its main agenda was a result from the need to distinguish between the Bulgarians and the new Macedonian nation, because Macedonians could confirm themselves as a separate community with its own history, only through differentiating itself from Bulgaria. This policy has continued in the new Republic of Macedonia after 1990, although with less intensity. Thus, the Bulgarian part of the identity of the Slavic-speaking population in Vardar Macedonia has died out.


===Contemporary state of identity and polemics===
In the 13th century the region was briefly passed to ], ] and back to Greek rule.<ref name="Hugh Poulton"> Who Are the Macedonians?, Page 20, by Hugh Poulton , ISBN 1-85065-534-0</ref> For example ], former nobleman from Skopje ruled over the region as ] of ] from ] to ]. In the 14 century this area was conquered by the ] of Tsar ]. However, with his death the region fell under leadership of local nobles, who divided his territories between them. Disunited, the feudal rulers fell to the end of 14 century to the emerging ] one by one.
] was the first ] (now North Macedonia) after the ] in 1991.]]
Following the collapse of Yugoslavia, the issue of Macedonian identity emerged again. Nationalists and governments alike from neighbouring countries, especially Greece and Bulgaria, espouse the view that the Macedonian ethnicity is a modern, artificial creation. Such views have been seen by Macedonian historians to represent irredentist motives on Macedonian territory.<ref name="Rossos A. 2008"/> Moreover, some historians point out that ''all'' modern nations are recent, politically motivated constructs based on creation "myths",<ref>Smith A.D. ''The Antiquity of Nations''. 2004, p. 47</ref> that the creation of Macedonian identity is "no more or less artificial than any other identity",<ref name="Cambridge University Press">{{Cite book | last1 = Rae | first1 = Heather | title = State identities and the homogenisation of peoples | year = 2002 | publisher=Cambridge University Press | location = Cambridge | isbn = 0-521-79708-X | page =278}}</ref> and that, contrary to the claims of Romantic nationalists, modern, territorially bound and mutually exclusive nation-states have little in common with their preceding large territorial or dynastic medieval empires, and any connection between them is tenuous at best.<ref>Danforth, L. ''The Macedonian Conflict. Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World''. p. 25</ref> In any event, irrespective of shifting political affiliations, the Macedonian Slavs shared in the fortunes of the ] and the ] and they can claim them as their heritage.<ref name="Rossos A. 2008"/> Loring Danforth states similarly, the ancient heritage of modern Balkan countries is not "the mutually exclusive property of one specific nation" but "the shared inheritance of all Balkan peoples".<ref>''Ancient Macedonia: National Symbols.'' L Danforth in ''A Companion to Ancient Macedonia''. Wiley –Blackwell 2010. p. 597-8</ref>


A more radical and uncompromising strand of Macedonian nationalism has recently emerged called "ancient Macedonism", or "]". Proponents of this view see modern Macedonians as direct descendants of the ancient Macedonians. This view faces criticism by academics as it is not supported by archaeology or other historical disciplines and also could marginalize the Macedonian identity.<ref>The Handbook of Political Change in Eastern Europe, Sten Berglund, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013, {{ISBN|1782545883}},</ref><ref>Transforming National Holidays: Identity Discourse in the West and South Slavic Countries, 1985–2010, Ljiljana Šarić, Karen Gammelgaard, Kjetil Rå Hauge, John Benjamins Publishing, 2012, {{ISBN|9027206384}}, </ref> Surveys on the effects of the controversial ] project ] and on the perceptions of the population of Skopje revealed a high degree of uncertainty regarding the latter's national identity. A supplementary national poll showed that there was a great discrepancy between the population's sentiment and the narrative the state sought to promote.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Muhić | first1 = Maja | last2 = Takovski | first2 = Aleksandar | year = 2014 | title = Redefining National Identity in Macedonia. Analyzing Competing Origins Myths and Interpretations through Hegemonic Representations. | journal = Etnološka Tribina | volume = 44 | issue = 37| page = 144 | url= https://hrcak.srce.hr/file/193030 | doi = 10.15378/1848-9540.2014 | doi-access = free }}</ref>
=== Ottoman Empire, Turkification and Islamization ===
''See also: ]''


Additionally, during the last two decades, tens of thousands of citizens of North Macedonia have applied for Bulgarian citizenship.<ref>Sinisa Jakov Marusic, More Macedonians Apply for Bulgarian Citizenship. </ref> In the period since 2000 more than 100,000 acquired it, while ca. 50,000 applied and are still waiting.<ref>{{lang|bg|Предоставяне на българско гражданство, Справка за преиода 22.01.2002–15.01.2012 г. (Bulgarian citizenship Information for the period 22.01.2002–15.01.2012 year); Доклад за дейността на КБГБЧ за 2012–2013 година (Report on the activities of the CBCBA for 2012–2013 year), p. 7 Доклад за дейността на КБГБЧ за периода 23.01.2013 – 22.01.2014 година (Report on the activities of the CBCBA for the period 23.01.2013–22.01.2014 year), p. 6; Годишен доклад за дейността на КБГБЧ за периода 01.01.2014–31.12.2014 година (Annual report on the activities of the CBCBA for the period 01.01.2014–31.12.2014 year), p. 5; Годишен доклад за дейността на КБГБЧ за периода 01.01.2015–31.12.2015 година (Annual report on the activities of the CBCBA for the period 01.01.2015–31.12.2015 year), p. 6; Годишен доклад за дейността на КБГБЧ за периода 01.01.2016–31.12.2016 година (Annual report on the activities of the CBCBA for the period 01.01.2016–31.12.2016 year), p. 6; Доклад за дейността на комисията по българско гражданство за периода 14 януари – 31 декември 2017 г. (Activity Report of the Bulgarian Citizenship Commission for the period 14 January – 31 December 2017); Доклад за дейността на комисията по българско гражданство за периода 01 януари – 31 декември 2018 г. (Activity Report of the Bulgarian Citizenship Commission for the period 01 January – 31 December 2018); Доклад за дейността на комисията по българско гражданство за периода 01 януари – 31 декември 2019 г. (Activity Report of the Bulgarian Citizenship Commission for the period 01 January – 31 December 2019). Доклад за дейността на комисията по българско гражданство за периода 01 януари – 31 декември 2020 г.}} (Activity Report of the Bulgarian Citizenship Commission for the period 01 January – 31 December 2020).</ref> Bulgaria has a special ethnic dual-citizenship regime which makes a constitutional distinction between ''ethnic Bulgarians'' and ''Bulgarian citizens''. In the case of the Macedonians, merely declaring their national identity as Bulgarian is enough to gain a citizenship.<ref>Bulgaria which has an ethnic citizenship regime and has a liberal dual citizenship regime makes a constitutional distinction between Bulgarians and Bulgarian citizens, whereas the former category reflects an ethnic (blood) belonging and the later the civic (territorial) belonging. In line with this definition, naturalization in Bulgaria is facilitated for those individuals who can prove that they belong to the Bulgarian nation...The birth certificates of parents and grandparents, their mother tongue, membership in Bulgarian institutions as the Bulgarian Church, former Bulgarian citizenship of the parents and so on are relevant criteria for the establishment of the ethnic origin of the applicant. In the case of Macedonian citizens, declaring their national identity as Bulgarian suffices to obtain Bulgarian citizenship, without the requirement for permanent residence in Bulgaria, or the language examination etc. For more see: Jelena Džankić, Citizenship in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Montenegro: Effects of Statehood and Identity Challenges, Southeast European Studies, Ashgate Publishing, 2015, {{ISBN|1472446410}}, p. 126.</ref> By making the procedure simpler, Bulgaria stimulates more Macedonian citizens (of Slavic origin) to apply for a Bulgarian citizenship.<ref>Raymond Detrez, Historical Dictionary of Bulgaria, Historical Dictionaries of Europe, Rowman & Littlefield, 2014, {{ISBN|1442241802}}, p. 318.</ref> However, many Macedonians who apply for Bulgarian citizenship as ''Bulgarians by origin'',<ref>Jo Shaw and Igor Štiks as ed., Citizenship after Yugoslavia, Routledge, 2013, {{ISBN|1317967070}}, p. 106.</ref> have few ties with Bulgaria.<ref>Rainer Bauböck, Debating Transformations of National Citizenship, IMISCOE Research Series, Springer, 2018, {{ISBN|3319927191}}, pp. 47–48.</ref> Further, those applying for ] usually say they do so to gain access to ] rather than to assert Bulgarian identity.<ref>Michael Palairet, Macedonia: A Voyage through History (Vol. 2, From the Fifteenth Century to the Present), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016, {{ISBN|1443888494}}, p. 347.</ref> This phenomenon is called ''] identity''.<ref>Mina Hristova, In-between Spaces: Dual Citizenship and Placebo Identity at the Triple Border between Serbia, Macedonia and Bulgaria in New Diversities; Volume 21, No. 1, 2019, pp. 37–55.</ref> Some Macedonians view the Bulgarian policy as part of a strategy to destabilize the Macedonian national identity.<ref>Risteski, L. (2016). "Bulgarian passports" – Possibilities for greater mobility of Macedonians and/or strategies for identity manipulation? EthnoAnthropoZoom/ЕтноАнтропоЗум, (10), 80–107. https://doi.org/10.37620/EAZ14100081r</ref> As a nation engaged in a dispute over its distinctiveness from Bulgarians, Macedonians have always perceived themselves as threatened by their neighbor.<ref>Ljubica Spaskovska, Country report on Macedonia, November 2012. EUDO Citizenship Observatory, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, p.20.</ref> Bulgaria insists its neighbor admit the common historical roots of their languages and nations, a view Skopje continues to reject.<ref>Bulgaria asks EU to stop 'fake' Macedonian identity. </ref> As a result, Bulgaria blocked the official start of EU accession talks with North Macedonia.<ref>Bulgaria blocks EU accession talks with North Macedonia. .</ref>
This expansion of medieval states on the Balkan Peninsula was discontinued by the occupation of the Ottoman Empire in the 14th century. The region of Macedonia remained part of the Ottoman Empire for the next 500 years, i.e. until 1912. ] means the process of a society's conversion to the religion of Islam, or a neologism meaning an increase in observance by an already Muslim society. ] is a term used to describe a cultural change in which someone who is not a Turk becomes one, voluntarily or by force. Both terms can be used in contexts of connection with various Slavic people in Macedonia (], ] and ]), which converted to ] during the Ottoman rule. Overall, the large majority of ethnic Macedonians remained Christian.


Despite sizable number of Macedonians that have acquired Bulgarian citizenship since 2002 (ca. 9.7% of the Slavic population), only 3,504 citizens of North Macedonia declared themselves as ethnic Bulgarians in the ] (roughly 0.31% from the Slavic population).<ref>{{cite web|title= Address by the Director of the State Statistical Office on the completion of the Census 2021|url=https://popis2021.stat.gov.mk/Активности/Обраќање-на-директорот-на-Државниот-завод-за-статистика-по-повод-завршувањето-на-Попис-2021/}}</ref> The Bulgarian side does not accept these results as completely objective, citing as an example the census has counted less than 20,000 people with Bulgarian citizenship in the country, while in fact they are over 100,000.<ref>Лилия Чалева, Скопие преброи 19 645 души с двойно гражданство .</ref>
]'s article "]" published 18th January 1871, in which he mentions that some people from Macedonia declare themselves as separate people - ''Macedonians'', different from Bulgarians. Those people he refers to as "]"]]


==Ethnonym==
During the rule of the Ottomans, the locals organized a number of uprisings: ] uprising (1564), ] (1689), ](1878) etc. According to the Preliminary ] between Russia and the Ottoman Empire signed at the end of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78), Macedonia was granted to the new autonomous self-governing ]. However, the Great Powers, particularly England and Austria grew alarmed with what they saw as extension of ] power, since Bulgaria was a fellow Slavic Orthodox country that could be easily swayed by Russia. Additionally, they feared that a too rapid collapse of Ottoman rule could create a dangerous power vacuum. Also, ] and ] held some resentment at the establishment of what they saw as a ], and felt deprived from the spoils of Ottoman decline.
{{See also|Macedonians (obsolete terminology)}}


The national name derives from the ] term ''Makedonía'', related to the name of the ], named after the ] and their ]. It originates from the ] adjective ], meaning "tall",<ref>, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', on Perseus</ref> which shares its roots with the adjective ''makrós'', meaning the same.<ref>, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', on Perseus</ref> The name is originally believed to have meant either "highlanders" or "the tall ones", possibly descriptive of these ].<ref name="Macedonia">, Online Etymology Dictionary</ref><ref>], ''Makedonika'', Regina Books, {{ISBN|0-941690-65-2}}, p.114: The "highlanders" or "Makedones" of the mountainous regions of western Macedonia are derived from northwest Greek stock; they were akin both to those who at an earlier time may have migrated south to become the historical "Dorians".</ref><ref>Nigel Guy Wilson, ''Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece'', Routledge, 2009, p.439: The latest archaeological findings have confirmed that Macedonia took its name from a tribe of tall, Greek-speaking people, the Makednoi.</ref> In the ] the name of Macedonia had different meanings for Western Europeans and for the Balkan people. For the Westerners it denoted the historical territory of the ], but for the Balkan Christians, it covered the territories of the former ], situated around modern Turkish ].<ref>Drezov K. (1999) Macedonian identity: an overview of the major claims. In: Pettifer J. (eds) The New Macedonian Question. St Antony's Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London, {{ISBN|0230535798}}, pp. 50–51.</ref>
This prompted the ] to obtain a revision of this treaty. The subsequent ] a few months later was a meeting of the European Great Powers' which revised the Treaty of San Stefano. Although ] and ] succeeded in becoming independent Kingdoms, autonomous from Turkey. Bulgaria's lost much of the territory it had gained, losing] and Macedonia back to the Turks. Despite calls for liberation and even the founding of a united Macedonian principality (ie Pan Macedonian), run by a Christian governor, the pleas of the people fell on deaf ears. These events all conspired to create tensions which would spill over into war. The issue of irredentism and nationalism gained great prominence after the creation of ] and Turkish collapse following the 1878 Treaty of San Stefano. In the first half of 20th Century control over Macedonia was a key point of contention between Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia.


With the conquest of the Balkans by the ] in the late 14th century, the name of Macedonia disappeared as a geographical designation for several centuries. The name was revived just during the early 19th century, after the foundation of the modern ] state with its Western Europe-derived ].<ref>Jelavich Barbara, History of the Balkans, Vol. 2: Twentieth Century, 1983, Cambridge University Press, {{ISBN|0521274591}}, page 91.</ref><ref>John S. Koliopoulos, Thanos M. Veremis, Modern Greece: A History since 1821. A New History of Modern Europe, John Wiley & Sons, 2009, {{ISBN|1444314831}}, p. 48.</ref> As a result of the ], massive Greek ] occurred, and a process of '']'' was implemented among Slavic-speaking population of the area.<ref>Richard Clogg, Minorities in Greece: Aspects of a Plural Society. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2002, {{ISBN|1850657068}}, p. 160.</ref><ref>Dimitar Bechev, Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia, Scarecrow Press, 2009, {{ISBN|0810862956}}, Introduction, pp. VII-VIII.</ref> In this way, the name ''Macedonians'' was applied to the local Slavs, aiming to stimulate the development of ] between them and the ], linking both sides to the ], as a counteract against the growing ] into the region.<ref>J. Pettifer, The New Macedonian Question, St Antony's group, Springer, 1999, {{ISBN|0230535798}}, pp. 49–51.</ref><ref>Anastas Vangeli, Nation-building ancient Macedonian style: the origins and the effects of the so-called antiquization in Macedonia. Nationalities Papers, the Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity, Volume 39, 2011 pp. 13–32.</ref>
Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia all wished to claim Macedonia, as a key strategic part of their newly formed kingdoms. Throughout the 19th century, each kingdom tried to claim Macedonia as its own. This was done through the medium of church and education, particularly between Greece and Bulgaria. Throught the advancement of Greek or Bulgarian language, and provision of local priests either from the ] or ], an entire village would be claimed to be 'Greek', while its neighbour would be 'Bulgarian'. This ''ad hoc'' arrangement did not follow any geographic or ethnic correlates, and occurred at the expense of the development of a local, ''Macedonian'' identity, and often involved harassment of peoples in order to profess loyalty to Greece or Bulgaria, and abdicate profession of any independent identity <ref> The Balkans: From Constantinople to Communism. D P Hupchik </ref>.


Although the local intellectuals initially rejected the Macedonian designation as Greek,<ref> ''As the Macedonian historian Taskovski claims, the Macedonian Slavs initially rejected the Macedonian designation as Greek.'' For more see: Tchavdar Marinov, Famous Macedonia, the Land of Alexander: Macedonian identity at the crossroads of Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian nationalism, p. 285; in Entangled Histories of the Balkans – Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies with Roumen Daskalov and Tchavdar Marinov as ed., BRILL, 2013, {{ISBN|900425076X}}, pp. 273–330.</ref> since the 1850s some of them, adopted it as a regional identity, and this name began to gain popularity.<ref name="Roumen Daskalov 2013"/> Serbian politics then, also encouraged this kind of ] to neutralize the Bulgarian influx, thereby promoting Serbian interests there.<ref>Chris Kostov, Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900–1996, Peter Lang, 2010, {{ISBN|3034301960}}, p. 65.</ref> The local educator ] concluded that since the 1870s this foreign ethnonym began to replace the traditional one ''Bulgarians''.<ref name="Prof. 1934, p. 55">In a letter to Prof. ] of May 25, 1888 Kuzman Shapkarev writes: "But even stranger is the name Macedonians, which was imposed on us only 10–15 years ago by outsiders, and not as some think by our own intellectuals.... Yet the people in Macedonia know nothing of that ancient name, reintroduced today with a cunning aim on the one hand and a stupid one on the other. They know the older word: "Bugari", although mispronounced: they have even adopted it as peculiarly theirs, inapplicable to other Bulgarians. You can find more about this in the introduction to the booklets I am sending you. They call their own Macedono-Bulgarian dialect the "Bugarski language", while the rest of the Bulgarian dialects they refer to as the "Shopski language". (Makedonski pregled, IX, 2, 1934, p. 55; the original letter is kept in the Marin Drinov Museum in Sofia, and it is available for examination and study)</ref> At the dawn of the 20th century the Bulgarian teacher ] marked that the local Bulgarians and ] call themselves Macedonians, and the surrounding people also call them in the same way.<ref>E. Damianopoulos, The Macedonians: Their Past and Present, Springer, 2012, {{ISBN|1137011904}}, p. 185.</ref> During the ] Bulgaria also supported to some extent the Macedonian ''regional identity'', especially in Yugoslavia. Its aim was to prevent the ] of the local Slavic speakers, because the very name ''Macedonia'' was prohibited in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.<ref>Donald Bloxham, The Final Solution: A Genocide, OUP Oxford, 2009, {{ISBN|0199550336}}, p. 65.</ref><ref>Chris Kostov, Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, Peter Lang, 2010, {{ISBN|3034301960}}, p. 76.</ref> Ultimately the designation Macedonian, changed its status in 1944, and went from being predominantly a regional, ethnographic denomination, to a national one.<ref>Raymond Detrez, Pieter Plas, Developing cultural identity in the Balkans: convergence vs divergence, Volume 34 of Multiple Europesq Peter Lang, 2005, {{ISBN|9052012970}}, p. 173.</ref>
===Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising and after===
{{main|Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising}}


==Population==
In 1893 revolutionary organization was established, (later ]). This organization advocated the creation of an autonomous Macedonia and ] in the Ottoman Empire <ref name="R J Crampton">Atlas of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, Page 17, by R J Crampton, ISBN 0-415-06689-1</ref> with the priority of the Bulgarian element. Before 1902, in theory only Bulgarians could join, but afterwards, it invited anyone who lives in Macedonia, whether Greek, Bulgarian or Jew to join together. On August 2, 1903, IMRO led the locals in the ], named after the festival of the Prophet Elijah on which it began. That was one of the greatest events in the history of the population in the regions of Macedonia and Thrace. The high point of the Ilinden revolution was the establishment of the ] in the town of ]. By November 1903, the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising was suppressed.<ref name="Loring M. Danforth">The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World, Page 51, by Loring M. Danforth, ISBN 0-691-04356-6</ref> The uprising was led by the following activists of the IMRO: ], ], ], ], etc.
{{Ethnic Macedonians}}
The vast majority of Macedonians live along the valley of the river ], the central region of the Republic of North Macedonia. They form about 64.18% of the population of North Macedonia (1,297,981 people according to the ). Smaller numbers live in eastern ], northern Greece, and southern ], mostly abutting the border areas of the ]. A large number of Macedonians have immigrated overseas to Australia, the United States, Canada, New Zealand and to many European countries: Germany, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Austria among others.


===Balkans===
The failure of the 1903 insurrection resulted in the eventual split of the IMRO into a left wing (federalist) and a right wing. The left-wing faction opposed Bulgarian nationalism and advocated the creation of a ] with equality for all subjects and nationalities, including Bulgarians. The right-wing fraction of IMRO drifted more and more towards Bulgarian nationalism as its regions became increasingly exposed to the incursions of Serb and Greek armed bands, which started infiltrating Macedonia after 1903. The years 1905-1907 saw lots of violent fighting between IMRO and Turkish forces as well as between IMRO and Greek and Serb detachments.
====Greece====
{{See also|Slavic-speakers of Greek Macedonia}}
After the ] of 1908 both fractions laid down their arms and joined the legal struggle. The federalist wing welcomed in the revolution of 1908 and later joined mainstream political life as the ]. The right wing formed the ] and like the PFP participated in Ottoman elections.


The existence of an ethnic Macedonian minority in Greece is rejected by the Greek government. The number of people speaking Slavic dialects has been estimated at somewhere between 10,000 and 250,000.{{efn|See:<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FnxZfdDXC7gC&q=number+of+slavophone+greece&pg=PA234|title=Bulgaria and Europe|access-date=18 March 2015|isbn=9781843318286|last1=Katsikas|first1=Stefanos|date=15 June 2010|publisher=Anthem Press }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=GR|title=Ethnologue report for Greece|work=]|access-date=13 February 2009}}</ref><ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110209045725/http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/Profile.aspx?LangID=42&menu=004|date=9 February 2011}}.</ref><ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110605045853/http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/Profile.aspx?LangID=37&menu=004|date=5 June 2011}}.</ref><ref>L. M. Danforth, The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World 1995, Princeton University Press.</ref><ref>Jacques Bacid, PhD Macedonia Through the Ages. Columbia University, 1983.</ref><ref>Hill, P. (1999) "Macedonians in Greece and Albania: A Comparative study of recent developments". Nationalities Papers Volume 27, 1 March 1999, p. 44(14).</ref><ref>Poulton, H.(2000), "Who are the Macedonians?", C. Hurst & Co. Publishers.</ref>}} Most of these people however do not have an ethnic Macedonian national consciousness, with most choosing to identify as ethnic ]<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZmesOn_HhfEC&q=number+of+slav+macedonians+in+greece&pg=PA74|title=The Macedonian Conflict|access-date=18 March 2015|isbn=0691043566|last1=Danforth|first1=Loring M.|date=6 April 1997|publisher=Princeton University Press }}</ref> or rejecting both ethnic designations and preferring terms such as ''"natives"'' instead.<ref name="Greece">{{cite web|url=https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61651.htm|title=Greece|publisher=Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor|access-date=27 October 2016}}</ref> In 1999 the ] estimated that the number of people identifying as ethnic Macedonians numbered somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000,<ref name="dev.eurac.edu"> {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030523145306/http://dev.eurac.edu:8085/mugs2/do/blob.html?type=html&serial=1044526702223 |date=23 May 2003 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tD3TZJy5HagC&q=number+of+macedonians+in+greece&pg=PA152|title=Culture and Rights|access-date=18 March 2015|isbn=9780521797351|last1=Cowan|first1=Jane K.|last2=Dembour|first2=Marie-Bénédicte|last3=Wilson|first3=Richard A.|date=29 November 2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref> Macedonian sources generally claim the number of ethnic Macedonians living in Greece at somewhere between 200,000 and 350,000.<ref>L. M. Danforth, The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World 1995, Princeton University Press, p. 45</ref> The ethnic Macedonians in Greece have faced difficulties from the Greek government in their ability to self-declare as members of a ''"Macedonian minority"'' and to refer to their native language as ''"Macedonian"''.<ref name="Greece"/>
===The Balkan Wars===
{{main|Balkan Wars}}
] in ] from 1913 till 1918 by ] and the members of the Macedonian Colony in Peterburg. The newspaper propagated that there existed a "homogenous Slav population possessing its own history, its own way of life" that was are neither Serbs nor Bulgarians, but a separate people.]]


Since the late 1980s there has been an ethnic Macedonian revival in Northern Greece, mostly centering on the region of ].<ref>Detrez, Raymond; Plas, Pieter (2005), Developing cultural identity in the Balkans: convergence vs divergence, Peter Lang, pp. 50</ref> Since then ethnic Macedonian organisations including the ] have been established.<ref> – ''"Втор весник на Македонците во Грција...Весникот се вика "Задруга"...За нецел месец во Грција излезе уште еден весник на Македонците/A Second Macedonian Newspaper in greece...The Newspaper is Called "Zadruga/Koinothta"...Barely a month ago in Greece another newspaper for the Macedonians was released."''</ref> ''Rainbow'' first opened its offices in Florina on 6 September 1995. The following day, the offices had been broken into and had been ransacked.<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061209033640/http://www.greekhelsinki.gr/pdf/rainbow-english.pdf |date=2006-12-09 }}</ref> Later Members of ''Rainbow'' had been charged for "causing and inciting mutual hatred among the citizens" because the party had bilingual signs written in both ] and ].<ref></ref> On 20 October 2005, the ] ordered the Greek government to pay penalties to the ''Rainbow Party'' for violations of 2 ECHR articles.<ref name="Greece"/> ''Rainbow'' has seen limited success at a national level, its best result being achieved in the 1994 European elections, with a total of 7,263 votes. Since 2004 it has participated in European Parliament elections and local elections, but not in national elections. A few of its members have been elected in local administrative posts. ''Rainbow'' has recently re-established ''Nova Zora'', a newspaper that was first published for a short period in the mid-1990s, with reportedly 20,000 copies being distributed free of charge.<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110823234401/http://www.utrinski.com.mk/?ItemID=37A12ADE09614C45AA6D0395682BF917 |date=23 August 2011 }} – ''""Нова зора"...печати во 20.000 примероци/Nova Zora...is printed in 20,000 copies"''</ref><ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100509162418/http://www.a1.com.mk/vesti/default.aspx?VestID=122849 |date=9 May 2010 }} – ''""Нова зора" – прв весник на македонски јазик во Грција...При печатењето на тиражот од 20.000 примероци се појавиле само мали технички проблеми/Nova Zora – the first Macedonian-language newspaper in Greece...There were only small technical problems with the printing of the circulation of 20,000"''</ref><ref>{{dead link|date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} – ''"Весникот е наречен "Нова зора" и треба да се печати во 20.000 примероци/The Newspaper is called Nova Zora and 20,000 copies are printed."''</ref>
During the ] former IMRO leaders of both the left and the right wings joined the Macedono-Odrinian Volunteers and fought with the Bulgarian Army. Others like ] with their bands assisted the Bulgarian army with its advance and still others penetrated as far as the region of ] in the Villayet of Monastir.{{ref|Gramos}} In the Second Balkan War IMRO bands fought the Greeks and Serbs behind the front lines but were subsequently routed and driven out. Notably, Petar Chaulev was one of the leaders of the Ohrid Uprising in 1913 organized jointly by IMRO and the Albanians of Western Macedonia.


====Serbia====
The Balkan Wars resulted in important demografic changes to the European territories of the Ottoman empire especially after they were defeated and forced out of the region. What we may call 'Ottoman Macedonia' was divided between the Balkan nations, with its northern parts going to Serbian, the southern to ], and the northeastern to Bulgaria.
{{Main|Macedonians in Serbia}}


Within ], Macedonians constitute an officially recognised ethnic minority at both a local and national level. Within ], Macedonians are recognised under the ], along with other ethnic groups. Large Macedonian settlements within Vojvodina can be found in ], ], ], ] and ]. These people are mainly the descendants of economic migrants who left the ] in the 1950s and 1960s. The ] are represented by a national council and in recent years Macedonian has begun to be taught. The most recent census recorded 22,755 Macedonians living in Serbia.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://pod2.stat.gov.rs/ObjavljenePublikacije/Popis2011/Nacionalna%20pripadnost-Ethnicity.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2015-06-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140811224233/http://pod2.stat.gov.rs/ObjavljenePublikacije/Popis2011/Nacionalna%20pripadnost-Ethnicity.pdf |archive-date=11 August 2014 |df=dmy }}</ref>
The wars were an important precursor to World War I, to the extent that ] took alarm at the great increase in Serbia's territory and regional status. This concern was shared by Germany, which saw Serbia as a satellite of Russia. Serbia's rise in power thus contributed to the two ]' willingness to risk war following the assassination in Sarajevo of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria in June 1914.


===World War I=== ====Albania====
{{Main|Macedonians of Albania}}


Macedonians represent the second largest ethnic minority population in ]. Albania recognises the existence of a Macedonian minority within the ] region, most of which is comprised by ]. Macedonians have full minority rights within this region, including the right to education and the provision of other services in ]. There also exist unrecognised Macedonian populations living in the ] region, the "Dolno Pole" area near the town of ], around ] and ] as well as in ]. 4,697 people declared themselves Macedonians in the 1989 census.<ref>Artan Hoxha and Alma Gurraj, Local Self-Government and Decentralization: Case of Albania. History, Reforms and Challenges. In: Local Self Government and Decentralization in South&nbsp;— East Europe. Proceedings of the workshop held in Zagreb, Croatia 6 April 2001. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Zagreb Office, Zagreb 2001, pp. 194–224 ().</ref>
''See also: ]''


====Bulgaria====
The attack on the Balkans by the Axis powers was begun by Austria, who initially suffered set backs by fierce Serbian resistance. It was not until Germany sent its troops that broke the resistance and allowed its allies, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria to advance forward. Bulgaria occupied much of Macedonia, advancing into Greek Macedonia too, ever desirous of the area. The IMRO, led by ], maintained its existence in Bulgaria, where it played a role in politics by playing upon Bulgarian irredentism and urging a renewed war to 'liberate' Macedonia. This was one factor in Bulgaria allying itself with Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I. IMRO organised the ] action of 1915, which was an attack on a large Serbian force. The Bulgarian army, supported by the organization's forces, was successful in the first stages of this conflict, managed to drive out the Serbian forces from Vardar Macedonia and came into positions on the line of the pre-war Greek-Serbian border, which was stabilized as a firm front until end of 1918.
{{Main|Ethnic Macedonians in Bulgaria}}


] are considered most closely related to the neighboring Macedonians, and it is sometimes claimed that there is no clear ethnic difference between them.<ref>{{cite book |title=Political and economic dictionary of Eastern Europe |last1=Day |first1=Alan John |last2=East |first2=Roger |last3=Thomas |first3=Richard |year=2002 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=1-85743-063-8 |page=94}}</ref> A total of 1,143 people officially declared themselves to be ethnic Macedonians in the last Bulgarian census in 2021.<ref name="etnoanalizat-na-nsi-8-4-v"/> During the same year, there were five times as many Bulgarian residents born in North Macedonia, 5,450.<ref>{{cite web|website=Eurostat|title=Population on 1 January by age group, sex and country of birth|url=https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/migr_pop3ctb__custom_8772350/default/table?lang=en}}</ref> Most of them held Bulgarian citizenship, with only 1,576 of them being citizens of the ].<ref>{{Cite web |date= |title=НАСЕЛЕНИЕ КЪМ 7 СЕПТЕМВРИ 2021 ГОДИНА |url=https://nsi.bg/sites/default/files/files/pressreleases/Census2021_population.pdf |access-date=2023-05-11 |website=nsi.bg|page=12}}</ref> According to the 2011 Bulgarian census, there were 561 ethnic Macedonians (0.2%) in the ],<ref>{{dead link|date=August 2021 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> the Bulgarian part of the geographical region of ], out of a total of 1,654 Macedonians in the entire country.<ref></ref> Also, a total of 429 citizens of the ] resided in the province.<ref></ref>
In September 1918 the Serbs, British, French and Greeks broke through on the Macedonian front and Tsar Ferdinand was forced to sue for peace. Under the ](November 1919), Bulgaria lost its Aegean coastline to Greece and nearly all of its Macedonian territory to the new state of Yugoslavia, and had to give ] back to the Romanians (see also ], ]).


In 1998, Krassimir Kanev, chairman of the non-governmental organization ], claimed that there were 15,000–25,000 ethnic Macedonians in Bulgaria (see ). In the same report, Macedonian nationalists <!-- see section 3.2.1 --> (Popov et al., 1989) claimed that 200,000 ethnic Macedonians lived in Bulgaria. However, according to the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, the vast majority of the Slavic-speaking population in ] had a Bulgarian national self-consciousness and a ] similar to the Macedonian regional identity in ]. According to ethnic Macedonian political activist, Stoyko Stoykov, the number of Bulgarian citizens with ethnic Macedonian self-consciousness in 2009 was between 5,000 and 10,000.<ref>
===Аfter the First World War===
{{cite web
''See also: ]''
|url=http://www.focus-fen.net/?id=f1218
|title=FOCUS Information Agency
|publisher=focus-fen.net
|access-date=14 March 2009
}}
</ref> In 2000, the ] banned ], a small Macedonian political party, as a separatist organization. Subsequently, activists attempted to re-establish the party but could not gather the required number of signatures.


<gallery class="center">
The territory of the present-day Republic of Macedonia came under the direct rule of Serbia (and later the ]), and was sometimes termed "southern Serbia", and, together with a large portion of today's southern Serbia, it belonged officially to the newly formed Vardar Banovina (district). An intense program of ] was implemented during the ] and ] when Belgrade enforced a Serbian cultural assimilation process on the region. Between the world wars in Serbia, the dialects of Macedonia were treated as a Serbian dialects (UCLA Language Material Sources, ). Only the literary ] was taught, it was the language of government, education, media, and public life; even so local literature was tolerated as a local dialectal folkloristic form. The Serbian National Theatre in Skopje even performed some plays (now the classical drama pieces) in the local language (UCLA Language Material Sources, ).
File:Map of the majority ethnic groups of Macedonia by municipality.svg|Macedonians in North Macedonia, according to the 2002 census
File:Macedonians in Serbia.png|Concentration of Macedonians in Serbia
File:MalaPrespaiGoloBrdo.png|Regions where Macedonians live within Albania
File:Torbesija.png|Macedonian Muslims in North Macedonia
</gallery>


===Diaspora===
Greece, like all other Balkan states, adopted restrictive policies towards its minorities, namely towards its Slavic population in its northern regions, due to its experiences with Bulgaria's wars, including the ], and the Bulgarian inclination of sections of its Slavic minority. Many of those inhabiting northeastern Greece fled to Bulgaria and very small group to Serbia (68 families) after the ] or were exchanged with native Greeks from Bulgaria under a population exchange treaty in the ]. Greeks were resettled in the region in two occasions, firstly following the Bulgarian loss of the ] when Bulgaria and Greece mutually exchanged their populations in ] , and secondly in ] as a result of the population exchange with the new Turkish republic that followed the Greek military defeat in Asia minor. Thus Greek Macedonia now came to be Greek dominant for the first time since the 7th century AD.
{{Further|Macedonian diaspora}}
[[File:Map of the Macedonian Diaspora in the World.svg|thumb|300x300px|Macedonian diaspora in the world (includes people with Macedonian ancestry or citizenship).<br />
{{Legend|#000000|North Macedonia}}
{{Legend|#BA9B15|+ 100,000}}
{{Legend|#F9D616|+ 10,000}}
{{Legend|#FFF0B3|+ 1,000}}]]


Significant Macedonian communities can also be found in the traditional immigrant-receiving nations, as well as in Western European countries. Census data in many European countries (such as Italy and Germany) does not take into account the ethnicity of émigrés from the Republic of North Macedonia.
The ] that stayed in northwestern Greece were regarded as a potentially disloyal minority and came under severe pressure, with restrictions on their movements, cultural activities and political rights. Many emigrated, for the most part to ], ], ] and Eastern European countries like Bulgaria. The Greek names for some traditionally Slavic or Turkish speaking areas became official and the Slavic speakers were encouraged to change their Slavic surnames to Greek sounding surnames, e.g. Nachev becoming Natsulis. A similar procedure was applied to Greek names in Bulgaria and Serbian Macedonia (eg. Nevrokopi becoming Goce Delchev ). In Greece, there was a government sponsored process of ] . Many of the border villages were closed to outsiders, ostensibly for security reasons.{{Fact|date=February 2007}} The Greek government and people have never recognized the existence of a distinct "Macedonian" ethnic group, as the term "Macedonian" is already reserved for the ethnic Greek population that has traditionally inhabited Greece's northern-most region (]). According to ] Slav speakers in northern Greece with a non-Greek national identity have tended to leave Greece. As a result, the overwhelming majority of remaining Slav speakers declare themselves as Greeks (Trudgill P. (2000) "Greece and European Turkey: From Religious to Linguistic Identity" in Language and Nationalism in Europe, Oxford University Press).


====Argentina====
] in 1925, intended for the Slavic-speaking minority children in ] to learn their native language in school.]]
Most Macedonians can be found in ], ] and ]. An estimated 30,000 Macedonians can be found in Argentina.<ref name=Naveski_1>Nasevski, Boško; Angelova, Dora. Gerovska, Dragica (1995). Македонски Иселенички Алманах '95. Skopje: Матица на Иселениците на Македонија.</ref>


====Australia====
On ], ], upon signing the ] that ''"measures were being taken towards the opening of schools with instruction in the Slav language in the following school year of 1925/26"''. Thus, the primer intended for the "] minority" children in Greek Macedonia to learn their native language in school, entitled "ABECEDAR" , was offered as an argument in support of this statement. This primer, prepared by a special government commissioner was published by the Greek government in Athens in 1925, but was printed in a specially adapted Latin alphabet instead of the traditional ], since Cyrillic was the official alphabet of the neighboring Bulgaria. ], on the other hand, uses both ] and ] scripts. Nevertheless, the Abecedar schoolbooks were confiscated and destroyed before they got into the reach of the children .
{{further|Macedonian Australians}}
The official number of Macedonians in Australia by birthplace or birthplace of parents is 83,893 (). The main Macedonian communities are found in Melbourne, ], Sydney, ], ], ] and ]. The 2006 census recorded 83,983 people of Macedonian ancestry and the 2011 census recorded 93,570 people of Macedonian ancestry.<ref>{{cite web|title=The People of Australia: Statistics from the 2011 Census|url=https://www.border.gov.au/ReportsandPublications/Documents/research/people-australia-2013-statistics.pdf|publisher=Australian Government|page=58|year=2014|access-date=23 September 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170417222156/https://www.border.gov.au/ReportsandPublications/Documents/research/people-australia-2013-statistics.pdf|archive-date=17 April 2017}}</ref>


====Brazil====
In 1924 ] entered negotiations with the ] about collaboration between the communists and the Macedonian movement and the creation of a united Macedonian movement. The idea for a new unified organization was supported by the ], which saw a chance for using this well developed revolutionary movement to spread revolution in the Balkans and destabilize the Balkan monarchies. ] defended IMRO's independence and refused to concede on practically all points requested by the Communists. No agreement was reached besides a paper "Manifesto" (the so-called May Manifesto of 6 May 1924), in which the objectives of the unified Macedonian liberation movement were presented: independence and unification of partitioned Macedonia, fighting all the neighbouring Balkan monarchies, forming a ] and cooperation with the Soviet Union.
An estimated 45,000 people in Brazil are of Macedonian ancestry.<ref>{{cite book
|script-title=mk:Македонски Иселенички Алманах '95
|last= Nasevski
|first= Boško
|author2=Angelova, Dora |author3=Gerovska, Dragica
|year= 1995
|publisher= Матица на Иселениците на Македонија
|location= Skopje
|pages= 52–53 }}</ref> The Macedonians can be primarily found in ], ], ] and ].


====Canada====
Failing to secure Alexandrov's cooperation, the Comintern decided to discredit him and published the contents of the Manifesto on 28 July 1924 in the "Balkan Federation" newspaper. IMRO's leaders Todor Aleksandrov and Aleksandar Protogerov promptly denied through the Bulgarian press that they've ever signed any agreements, claiming that the May Manifesto was a communist forgery.
{{further|Macedonian Canadians}}
The Canadian census in 2001 records 37,705 individuals claimed wholly or partly Macedonian heritage in Canada,<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.census.gov |title=U.S. Census website |access-date=28 March 2020 }}</ref> although community spokesmen have claimed that there are actually 100,000–150,000 Macedonians in Canada.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |entry= |encyclopedia=The Canadian Encyclopedia |url=http://www.canadianencyclopedia.ca/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1SEC823709 |access-date=7 March 2006 |title=Archived copy |archive-date=20 July 2012 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120720212139/http://www.canadianencyclopedia.ca/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1SEC823709 |url-status=dead }}</ref>


====United States====
The policy of assassinations was effective in making Serbian rule in Vardar Macedonia feel insecure but in turn provoked brutal reprisals on the local peasant population. Having lost a lot of popular support in Vardar Macedonia due to his policies ], a new IMRO leader, favoured the internationalization of the Macedonian question.
{{further|Macedonian Americans}}
A significant Macedonian community can be found in the United States. The official number of Macedonians in the US is 49,455 (). The Macedonian community is located mainly in ], New York, ], ] and ]<ref> {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050319231734/http://www.euroamericans.net/euroamericans.net/macedonian.htm |date=19 March 2005 }}</ref>
He established close links with the Croatian Ustashe and Italy. Numerous assassinations were carried out by IMRO agents in many countries, the majority in Yugoslavia. The most spectacular of these was the assassination of King ] and the French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou in Marseille in 1934 in collaboration with the Croatian Ustaše. The killing was carried out by the IMRO terrorist ] and happened after the suppression of IMRO following the 19 May 1934 military coup in Bulgaria.


====Germany====
During the 1930s the ] prepared a Resolution about the recognition of ]. It was accepted by the Political Secretariat in ] on January 11, 1934, and approved by the Executive Committee of the Comintern. The Resolution was published for first time in the April issue of ''Makedonsko Delo'' under the title ‘The Situation in Macedonia and the Tasks of ]’.
{{further|Macedonians in Germany}}
There are an estimated 61,000 citizens of North Macedonia in Germany (mostly in the ]) ().


===Second World War=== ====Italy====
There are 74,162 citizens of North Macedonia in Italy ().
{{see|Balkans Campaign|National Liberation War of Macedonia}}


====Switzerland====
Upon the outbreak of World War II, the government of the ] declared a position of neutrality, being determined to observe it until the end of the war, but hoping for bloodless territorial gains. But it was clear that the central geopolitical position of Bulgaria in the Balkans would inevitably lead to strong external pressure by both sides of ].
{{further|Macedonians in Switzerland}}
In 2006 the Swiss Government recorded 60,362 Macedonian Citizens living in Switzerland.<ref></ref>


====Romania====
Bulgaria was forced to join the ] powers in 1941, when German troops prepared to invade Greece from Romania reached the Bulgarian borders and demanded permission to pass through Bulgarian territory. Threatened by direct military confrontation, ] had no choice but to join the fascist block, which officially happened on 1 March 1941. There was little popular opposition, since the Soviet Union was in a non-aggression pact with Germany.
{{further|Macedonians in Romania}}
Macedonians are an officially recognised minority group in Romania. They have a special reserved seat in the nation's parliament. In 2002, they numbered 731.


====Slovenia====
On April 6, 1941, despite having officially joined the Axis Powers, the Bulgarian government maintained a course of military passivity during the initial stages of the ] and the ]. As German, Italian, and Hungarian troops crushed Yugoslavia and Greece, the Bulgarians remained on the side-lines. The Yugoslav government surrendered on April 17. The Greek government was to hold out until April 30. On April 20, the period of Bulgarian passivity ended. The Bulgarian Army entered the Aegean region. The goal was to gain an ] outlet in Thrace and Eastern Macedonia and much of eastern Serbia. The so-called Vardar Banovina was divided between Bulgaria and Italians which occupied West Macedonia.
{{further|Macedonians in Slovenia}}
Macedonians began relocating to Slovenia in the 1950s when the two regions formed a part of a single country, ].


====Other countries====
<!-- Image with unknown copyright status removed: ] -->
Sizeable Macedonian communities can also be found in the ], as well as in ] countries, like the ], ] and ].


==Culture==
At the beginning of the war on the Balkans all in Macedonia shows how complicated the situation was. The political sympathies were intertwined with the national feelings. As ruling, the pro-Serbian elements were for the English-French block and the pro - Bulgarian, for the power of Axis. Besides, some of the former revolutionary activists were not far from the thought of solving the Macedonian question through accession of Macedonia or parts of it to Italy. The followers of ] fought for pro-Axis and pro-Bulgarian Macedonia. In this situa­tion the population was divided in different groups. And time was crucial.
{{Main|Culture of North Macedonia}}
{{more citations needed|section|date=August 2019}}


The culture of the people is characterized with both traditionalist and modernist attributes. It is strongly bound with their native land and the surrounding in which they live. The rich cultural heritage of the Macedonians is accented in the folklore, the picturesque traditional folk costumes, decorations and ornaments in city and village homes, the architecture, the monasteries and churches, iconostasis, wood-carving and so on. The culture of Macedonians can roughly be explained as Balkanic, closely related to that of ] and ].
Thus on April 8th. 1941 in ] a meeting was held, where the question: “What had to be done?" was put up. What actions should be undertaken in those crucial days in order not to omit, as it had already happened, the precise moment for liberating Macedonia. On that meeting were present mainly followers of the idea for the liberation through independence of Macedonia, namely: Dimitаr Gjuzelev, Dimitur Chkatrov, Toma Klenkov, Ivan Piperkov and other popular activists of IMRO as well as members of ](YCP) - Kotse Stojanov, Angel Petkovski and Ilja Neshovski, invited by Trajko Popov. The latter despite a communist, member of YCP, was an active follower of the idea of IMRO for the creation of a pro-Bulgarian, Macedonian state under German and Italian protection. But the situation changed dynamically.


===Architecture===
As ten days later the Bulgarian army entered Yugoslav Vardar Macedonia on April 19th. 1941, it was greeted by most of the population as liberators. Former IMRO members were active in organising ] charged with taking over the local authorities. Some former ] members such as ] , who were leading member of the Yugoslav Communist Party, also refused to define the Bulgarian forces as occupiers (contrary to instructions from Belgrade) and called for the incorporation of the local Macedonian Communist organizations within the Bulgarian Communist Party. This policy changed towards 1943 with the arrival of the Montenegrin ], who began in earnest to organize armed resistance to the Bulgarian occupation. Many former IMRO members assisted the authorities in fighting Tempo's partisans.
] architecture in ].]]
]
The typical Macedonian village house is influenced by ]. Presented as a construction with two floors, with a hard facade composed of large stones and a wide balcony on the second floor. In villages with predominantly agricultural economy, the first floor was often used as a storage for the harvest, while in some villages the first floor was used as a cattle-pen.


The stereotype for a traditional Macedonian city house is a two-floor building with white façade, with a forward extended second floor, and black wooden elements around the windows and on the edges.
IMRO was also active in organizing the resistance of the Bulgarian population in ] against Greek nationalist and communist regiments. With the help of Mihailov and Macedonian emigrants in Sofia, several pro-German armed detachments - ] were organized in the Kostur, Lerin and Voden districts of Greek Macedonia in 1943-44. These were led by Bulgarian officers originally from Aegean Macedonia - ] and ].


===Cinema and theater===
Local recruits and volunteers formed the Bulgarian 5th Army, based in Skopje, which was responsible for the round-up and deportation of over 7,000 Jews in Skopje and Bitola. Harsh rule by the occupying forces encouraged some Macedonians to support the Communist Partisan resistance movement of ].
{{main|Cinema of North Macedonia}}
In ], it has been estimated that the military wing of the ] (KKE), the ] (DSE) had 14 000 soldiers of ] origin out of total 20 000 fighters. Some Macedonians which had been supporters of Communist partisan movement few in the Italian occupied area to Tito's Partisan resistance movement, fighting the occupying Bulgarians, Germans and Italians as well as opposing the Serbian royalist Chetniks. The Macedonian resistance at the end of the war had a strongly nationalist character, not at least as a reaction to Serbia's pre-war repression.


The history of film making in North Macedonia dates back over 110 years. The first film to be produced on the territory of the present-day the country was made in 1895 by ] in ]. In 1995 ] became the first Macedonian movie to be nominated for an Academy Award.<ref>{{cite web |title=The 67th Academy Awards {{!}} 1995 |url=https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1995 |website=Oscars.org {{!}} Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences |access-date=27 August 2019 |language=en}}</ref>
On the 2nd of August 1944 in the St. ] monastery at the Antifascist assembly of the national liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM) with ] (the former IMRO revolutionary from the Ilinden period and the IMRO United) as a first speaker, the modern Macedonian state was officially proclaimed, as a federal state within Tito's Yugoslavia, receiving recognition from the Allies.


From 1993 to 1994, 1,596 performances were held in the newly formed republic, and more than 330,000 people attended. The Macedonian National Theater (drama, opera, and ballet companies), the Drama Theater, the Theater of the Nationalities (Albanian and Turkish drama companies) and the other theater companies comprise about 870 professional actors, singers, ballet dancers, directors, playwrights, set and costume designers, etc. There is also a professional theatre for children and three amateur theaters. For the last thirty years a traditional festival of Macedonian professional theaters has been taking place in ] in honor of ], the founder of the modern Macedonian theater. Each year a festival of amateur and experimental Macedonian theater companies is held in ].
On 5 September 1944, the Soviet Union declared war on Bulgaria and invaded the country. Within three days the Soviets occupied the northeastern part of Bulgaria along with the key port cities of ] and ]. The Bulgarian Army was ordered to offer no resistance to the Soviets. On 8 September 1944, the Bulgarians changed sides and joined the Soviet Union in its war against Nazi Germany.


===Music and art===
After the declaration of war by Bulgaria on Germany, ] - the IMRO leader arrived in German occupied Skopje, where the Germans hoped that he could form an Macedonian state with their support. Seeing that the war is lost to Germany and to avoid further bloodshed, he refused. The Bulgarian troops, surrounded by German forces and betrayed by high-ranking military commanders, fought their way back to the old borders of Bulgaria. Three Bulgarian armies (some 500,000 strong in total) entered Yugoslavia in September 1944 and moved from Sofia to ] and Skopje with the strategic task of blocking the German forces withdrawing from Greece. Southern and eastern Serbia and Macedonia were liberated within a month.
{{main|Music of North Macedonia}}


Macedonian music has many things in common with the music of neighboring ] countries, but maintains its own distinctive sound.
=== Macedonians after the Second World War ===
''See also: ]''


The founders of modern Macedonian painting included ], ], ], and ]. They were succeeded by an exceptionally talented and fruitful generation, consisting of ], ], ] who are now deceased, and ] and many others who are still active. Others include: ] and ]. In addition to ], who is considered to be the founder of modern ], the works of ], ], ] and ] are also outstanding.
The People’s Republic of Macedonia was proclaimed at the first session of the ] (on St. Elia's Day – August 2, 1944). The Macedonian language was proclaimed the official language of the Republic of Macedonia at the same day. The first document written in the literary standard Macedonian language is the first issue of the Nova Makedonia newspaper in autumn 1944. Later, by special Act, it became a constitutive part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In the next 50 years Republic of Macedonia was part of the Yugoslav federation.


===Economy===
Vormer members of the ] which participated in ], ] and the forming of Republic of Macedonia as a federal state of ] as ], ], ] and ] were quickly ousted from the new government. Such Macedonian activists came from ], have declared Bulgarian ethnicity before ] never managed to get rid of their pro-Bulgarian bias and because of that, the first and second one were annihilated. As last survivor among the communists associated with the idea of Macedonian autonomy Dimitar Vlahov was used "solely for window dressing". They ware chanched (sicsic) from cadres loyal to the ] in Belgrade, who had has pro-Serbian leanings and education before the war. It was not important that thеse party members have declared Bulgarian origin during the war, as for example ], ] and ].
In the past, the Macedonian population was predominantly involved with ], with a very small portion of the people who were engaged in trade (mainly in the cities). But after the creation of the People's Republic of Macedonia which started a social transformation based on Socialist principles, middle and heavy industries were started.


===Language===
<!-- Image with unknown copyright status removed: ] from ] in 1946, organized in ], just before the beginning of the ]. 60% of the ] was composed of Slavophones from Macedonia<ref>Ζαούσης Αλέξανδρος. ''Η Τραγική αναμέτρηση, 1945-1949 – Ο μύθος και η αλήθεια'' (ISBN 9607213432).</ref>.]] -->
{{main|Macedonian language}}


Macedonian ({{lang|mk|македонски јазик}}) is a member of the Eastern group of ]. ] was implemented as the official language of the ] after being ] in the 1940s, and has accumulated a thriving ].
Following the war, Tito separated Yugoslav Macedonia from Serbia, making it a republic of the new federal Yugoslavia (as the Socialist Republic of Macedonia) in ]. He also promoted the concept of a separate Macedonian nation, as a means of severing the ties of the Slav population of Yugoslav Macedonia with Bulgaria, although the ] is close to and largely mutually intelligible with Bulgarian, and to a lesser extent Serbian. The differences were emphasized and the region's historical figures were promoted as being uniquely Macedonian (rather than Bulgarian or Serbian). A separate ] was established, splitting off from the ] in 1967 (only partly successfully, because the church has not been recognized by any other Orthodox Church). The ideologists of a separate and independent Macedonian country, same as the pro-Bulgarian sentiment, was forcibly suppressed.


The closest relative of Macedonian is ],<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Levinson|O'Leary|1992|p=239}}</ref> followed by ]. All the ] form a ], in which Macedonian and Bulgarian form an ]. The ] dialect group is intermediate between Bulgarian, Macedonian and Serbian, comprising some of the northernmost ] as well as varieties spoken in southern Serbia and western Bulgaria. Torlakian is often classified as part of the Eastern South Slavic dialects.
Tito had a number of reasons for doing this. First, he wanted to reduce Serbia's dominance in Yugoslavia; establishing a territory formerly considered Serbian as an equal to Serbia within Yugoslavia achieved this effect. Secondly, he wanted to sever the ties of the Macedonian population with Bulgaria as recognition of that population as Bulgarian could have undermined the unity of the Yugoslav federation. Thirdly, Tito sought to justify future Yugoslav claims towards the rest of geographical Macedonia; in August ], he claimed that his goal was to reunify "all parts of Macedonia, divided in 1915 and 1918 by Balkan imperialists." To this end, he opened negotiations with Bulgaria for a new federal communist state (see ]), which would also probably have included Albania, and supported the Greek Communists in the ]. The idea of reunification of all of Macedonia under Communist rule was abandoned in ] when the Greek Communists lost the civil war and Tito fell out with the Soviet Union and pro-Soviet Bulgaria.


The ] is an adaptation of the ], as well as language-specific conventions of spelling and punctuation. It is rarely ].
Tito's actions had a number of important consequences for the Macedonians. <ref> Floudas, Demetrius Andreas; {{cite web |publisher= in: Kourvetaris et al (eds.), The New Balkans, East European Monographs: Columbia University Press, 2002, p. 85 |url=http://www.intersticeconsulting.com/documents/FYROM.pdf | title= "FYROM's Dispute with Greece Revisited”}} </ref> The most important was, obviously, the promotion of a distinctive Macedonian identity as a part of the multi-ethnic society of Yugoslavia. The process of ], started earlier, gained momentum, and a distinct national Macedonian identity was formed. There have been numerous accounts from northern Macedonia from the late ] that the policy of ] during the Bulgarian occupation (] - ]) was no effective for the ordinary Macedonian as the policy of ] until then. ]'s leader in exile, ], and the renewed Bulgarian IMRO after 1990 have, on the other hand, repeatedly argued that between 120,000 and 130,000 people went through the concentration camps of Idrizovo and ] for pro-Bulgarian sympathies or ideas for independent Macedonia in the late 1940s. This has also been confirmed by former prime minister ] .


===Religion===
The critics of these claims question the number as it would implied roughly a third of the male Christian population at that time. And the reasons of imprisonment, they argue, were multiple as there were Macedonian nationalists, Stalinists, Middle class members, Albanian nationalists and everybody else who was either against the post war regime or denounced as one for whatever reasons. Unlike the time before WWII, when Macedonia was hotbed for unrest and terror and about 60% of the entire royal Yugoslav police force was stationed there , after the war there were no signs of disturbances comparable with pre-war times or post war times in other parts of former Yugoslavia, such as Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia. . Whatever the truth, it was certainly the case that most Macedonians embraced their official recognition as a separate nationality. Even so, some pro-Bulgarian or pro-Serbian sentiment persisted despite government suppression; even as late as ], convictions were still being handed down for pro-Bulgarian statements.
{{main|Macedonian Orthodox Church – Ohrid Archbishopric|Macedonian Orthodox Church|Roman Catholicism in North Macedonia|Macedonian Greek Catholic Church|Protestantism in North Macedonia|Islam in North Macedonia}}
] in Ohrid.]]


Most Macedonians are members of the ]. The official name of the church is Macedonian Orthodox Church – Ohrid Archbishopric and is the body of Christians who are united under the Archbishop of Ohrid and North Macedonia, exercising jurisdiction over Macedonian Orthodox Christians in the Republic of North Macedonia and in ]s in the ].
After the ], ethnic Macedonians living in Greece organized themselves in ] in 1945, and started fighting against the right-wing government in Athens. In 1946 ] agreed to unite with the ] and start a join fight (see: ]). Many of the slavophone Macedonians who lived in Greece either chose to emigrate to Communist countries (especially Yugoslavia) to avoid prosecution for fighting on the side of the Greek communists. Although there was some liberalization between ] and ], the Greek military dictatorship re-imposed harsh restrictions. The situation gradually eased after Greece's return to democracy, but Greece still receives criticism for its treatment of some slavophone Macedonian political organizations. Greece, however, recognizes the Rainbow political party of the slavophone Macedonians who canvas during elections.


The church gained autonomy from the ] in 1959 and declared the restoration of the historic ]. On 19 July 1967, the Macedonian Orthodox Church declared ] from the Serbian church. Due to protest from the Serbian Orthodox Church, the move was not recognised by any of the churches of the ]. Thereafter, Macedonian Orthodox Church was not in communion with any Orthodox Church, until 2022 when it was reintegrated.<ref>The encyclopedia of Christianity, Volume 3. By Erwin Fahlbusch, Geoffrey William Bromiley. p. 381</ref> A small number of Macedonians belong to the ] and the ] churches.
The Macedonians in ] faced restrictions under the ] ] of ], though ordinary Albanians were little better off. Their existence as a separate minority group was recognized as early as 1945 and a degree of cultural expression was permitted.


Between the 15th and the 20th centuries, during ], a number of Orthodox Macedonian Slavs converted to Islam. Today in the Republic of North Macedonia, they are regarded as ], who constitute the second largest religious community of the country.
As ethnographers and linguists tended to identify the population of the Bulgarian part of Macedonia as Bulgarian in the interwar period, the issue of a Macedonian minority in the country came up as late as the ]. In ], the population of ] was declared Macedonian and teachers were brought in from Yugoslavia to teach the ]. The census of ] was accompanied by mass repressions, the result of which was the complete destruction of the local organizations of the ] and mass internments of people at the ] ]. The policy was reverted at the end of the ] and later Bulgarian governments argued that the two censuses of ] and ] which recorded up to 187,789 Macedonians (of whom over 95% were said to live in Blagoevgrad Province, also called Pirin Macedonia) were the result of pressure from ]. Western governments, however, continued to list the population of Blagoevgrad Province as Macedonian until the beginning of the ] despite the ] census which put Macedonians in the country at 9,630. The two latest censuses after the fall of Communism (in ] and ]) have, however, confirmed the results from previous censuses with some 3,000 people declaring themselves as "Macedonians" in Blagoevgrad Province in 2001 (<1.0% of the population of the region) out of 5,000 in the whole of Bulgaria.


===Names===
===Macedonians after the establishment of independent Macedonian state===
{{main|Republic of Macedonia}} {{Main|Culture of North Macedonia#Macedonian names|l1=Macedonian names}}


===Cuisine===
The country officially celebrates 8 September 1991 as Independence day, with regard to the referendum endorsing independence from Yugoslavia, albeit legalizing participation in "future union of the former states of Yugoslavia". The Republic of Macedonia remained at peace through the Yugoslav wars of the early 1990s. A few very minor changes to its border with Yugoslavia were agreed upon to resolve problems with the demarcation line between the two countries. However, it was seriously destabilized by the ] in 1999, when an estimated 360,000 ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo took refuge in the country. Although they departed shortly after the war, soon after, ] radicals on both sides of the border took up arms in pursuit of autonomy or independence for the Albanian-populated areas of the Republic.
{{Main|Macedonian cuisine}}
], the ] of Macedonians.]]
] is a representative of the cuisine of the ]—reflecting Mediterranean (Greek) and Middle Eastern (Turkish) influences, and to a lesser extent Italian, German and Eastern European (especially Hungarian) ones. The relatively warm climate in North Macedonia provides excellent growth conditions for a variety of vegetables, herbs and fruits. Thus, Macedonian cuisine is particularly diverse.


], a food from Bulgaria, is an appetizer and side dish which accompanies almost every meal.{{citation needed|date=May 2020}} Macedonian cuisine is also noted for the diversity and quality of its ], wines, and local alcoholic beverages, such as ]. ] and ] are considered the national dish and drink of North Macedonia, respectively.
A short conflict was fought between government and ethnic Albanian rebels, mostly in the north and west of the country, between March and June 2001. This war ended with the intervention of a NATO ceasefire monitoring force. In the ], the government agreed to devolve greater political power and cultural recognition to the Albanian minority.


==Symbols==
In this period it has been claimed by Macedonian scholars that there exist large and oppressed ethnic Macedonian minorities in the region of Macedonia, located in neighboring Albania (up to 35,000 people), Bulgaria (up to 200,000, mainly in Blagoevgrad Province), Greece (up to 250 000 in Greek Macedonia) and Serbia (about 20,000 in Pčinja District). Because of those claims, irredentist proposals are being made calling for the expansion of the borders of the Republic of Macedonia to encompass the territories allegedly populated with ethnic Macedonians, either directly or through initial independence of ] and Greek Macedonia, followed by their incorporation into a single state. (See ]). The population of the neighboring regions is presented as "subdued" to the propaganda of the governments of those neighbouring countries, and in need of "liberation".
{{See also|List of flags of North Macedonia|National symbols of North Macedonia}}


Symbols used by members of the ethnic group include:
Because separate ethnic status of Macedonians is by some accounts not fully recognized in Bulgaria and Greece, there can be only speculation about the actual numbers, including the possibility that there is no Macedonian minority at all in those countries.
* '''Lion''': The lion first appears in the ] from the 17th century, where the coat of arms of ] is included among those of other entities. On the coat of arms is a crown; inside a yellow crowned lion is depicted standing rampant, on a red background. On the bottom enclosed in a red and yellow border is written "Macedonia". The use of the lion to represent Macedonia was continued in foreign heraldic collections throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.<ref>Matkovski, Aleksandar, ''Grbovite na Makedonija'', Skopje, 1970.</ref><ref>Александар Матковски (1990) Грбовите на Македонија, Мисла, Skopje, Macedonia&nbsp;— {{ISBN|86-15-00160-X}}<br /></ref> Nevertheless, during the late 19th century the ] arose, which modeled itself after the earlier ] and adopted their symbols as the ], etc.<ref>Duncan M. Perry, The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian Liberation Movements, 1893–1903, Duke University Press, 1988, pp. 39–40.</ref><ref>J. Pettifer as ed., The New Macedonian Question, Springer, 1999 {{ISBN|0230535798}}, p. 236.</ref> Modern versions of the historical lion has also been added to the emblem of several political parties, organizations and sports clubs. However, this symbol is not totally accepted while the state ] is somewhat similar.
]
* ''']:''' (official flag, 1992–1995) The ] is used unofficially by various associations and cultural groups in the Macedonian diaspora. The ] Sun is believed to have been associated with ] kings such as ] and ], although it was used as an ornamental design in ancient Greek art long before the Macedonian period. The symbol was depicted on a golden larnax found in a 4th-century BC royal tomb belonging to either Philip II or Philip III of Macedon in the ] region of ]. The ] regard the use of the symbol by North Macedonia as a misappropriation of a ], unrelated to Slavic cultures, and a direct claim on the legacy of Philip II. However, archaeological items depicting the symbol have also been excavated in the territory of ].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://haemus.org.mk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ohrid-World-Heritage-Site.pdf|title=Macedonian Cultural Heritage: Ohrid World Heritage Site|access-date=28 June 2020|archive-date=28 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200628032610/https://haemus.org.mk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ohrid-World-Heritage-Site.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> Toni Deskoski, Macedonian professor of International Law, argues that the Vergina Sun is not a Macedonian symbol but it's a Greek symbol that is used by Macedonians in the nationalist context of ] and that the Macedonians need to get rid of it.<ref>, Republica.mk: "The Vergina Sun flag was a national flag for only three years and that was one of the biggest mistakes. Neither the Ilinden fighters nor the partisans in the National Liberation War knew that symbol. That flag is the biggest hoax of Macedonianism. We need to unanimously reject and get rid of this Greek symbol. Let the Greeks glorify their symbols."</ref> In 1995, Greece lodged a claim for ] of the Vergina Sun as a state symbol under ].<ref>http://www.wipo.int/cgi-6te/guest/ifetch5?ENG+6TER+15+1151315-REVERSE+0+0+1055+F+125+431+101+25+SEP-0/HITNUM,B+KIND%2fEmblem+ {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060329000458/http://www.wipo.int/cgi-6te/guest/ifetch5?ENG%206TER%2015%201151315-REVERSE%200%200%201055%20F%20125%20431%20101%2025%20SEP-0%2FHITNUM%2CB%20KIND%2FEmblem%20 |title= wipo.int|date=29 March 2006 }}</ref> In Greece the symbol against a blue field is used vastly in the area of ] and it has official status.The Vergina sun on a red field was the first flag of the independent Republic of Macedonia, until it was removed from the state flag under an agreement reached between the Republic of Macedonia and Greece in September 1995.<ref>Floudas, Demetrius Andreas; {{cite news |publisher=24 (1996) Journal of Political and Military Sociology, 285|url=http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3719/is_199601/ai_n8752910 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060127053906/http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3719/is_199601/ai_n8752910 |archive-date=27 January 2006 | title= A Name for a Conflict or a Conflict for a Name? An Analysis of Greece's Dispute with FYROM |access-date=24 January 2007 | year=1996}}</ref> On 17 June 2018, Greece and the Republic of Macedonia signed the ], which stipulates the removal of the Vergina Sun's public use across the latter's territory.<ref name="2018FinalAgreement">{{cite web |url=http://s.kathimerini.gr/resources/article-files/symfwnia-aggliko-keimeno.pdf|title=Final Agreement for the Settlement of the Differences as Described in the United Nations Security Council Resolutions 817 (1993) and 845 (1993), The Termination of the Interim Accord of 1995, and the Establishment of a Strategic Partnership Between the Parties |website=eKathimerini |access-date=13 June 2018}}</ref><ref name="VerginaSunBan">{{cite web|url=https://www.crashonline.gr/epikairotita/1164670/chanetai-kai-o-ilios-tis-verginas-ti-orizei-i-symfonia-gia-to-sima/|title=Also the "Sun of Vergina" is being lost: what the agreement (original: Χάνεται και "ο Ηλιος της Βεργίνας": Τι ορίζει η συμφωνία για το σήμα)|publisher=Crash Online|date=14 June 2018|access-date=22 June 2018|archive-date=30 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200930184116/https://crashonline.gr/epikairotita/1164670/chanetai-kai-o-ilios-tis-verginas-ti-orizei-i-symfonia-gia-to-sima/|url-status=dead}}</ref> In a session held on early July 2019, the ] announced the complete removal of the Vergina Sun from all public areas, institutions and monuments in the country, with the deadline for its removal being set to 12 August 2019, in line with the Prespa Agreement.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://greekcitytimes.com/2019/07/14/north-macedonia-remove-star-vergina-public-spaces/|title=North Macedonia to remove the Star of Vergina from all public spaces|date=14 July 2019|publisher=GCT.com|access-date=15 July 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.news247.gr/politiki/voreia-makedonia-o-zaef-aposyrei-apo-pantoy-ton-ilio-tis-verginas.7474687.html|title=North Macedonia: Zaev removes from anywhere the Vergina Sun (original title: "Βόρεια Μακεδονία: Ο Ζάεφ αποσύρει από παντού τον Ήλιο της Βεργίνας")|publisher=News247|access-date=15 July 2019|date=14 July 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://english.republika.mk/news/macedonia/kutlesh-star-no-longer-to-be-seen-in-public-use/|title=Kutlesh star no longer to be seen in public use|publisher=Republika.mk|access-date=15 July 2019|date=12 July 2019}}</ref>


== Genetics ==
The supporters of ] generally ignore censi conducted in Albania, Bulgaria and Greece, which show minimal presence of ethnic Macedonians. They consider those censi flawed, without presenting evidence in support, and accusing the governments of neighboring countries of continued propaganda. During this period, ethnic Macedonians living in the region continue to complain of official harassment. This was confirmed in ] by the ] with a whereby Bulgaria was sentenced to pay damages amounting to 6800 ]s for a violation of Article 11 (freedom of assembly and association) of the European Convention on Human Rights for its refusal to give court registration to "]", the Macedonian political party in Bulgaria.
]), B (]) and C (]) on the plots (Macedonian samples are marked as ''Mc'' in brown colored circle).]]
Anthropologically, Macedonians possess genetic lineages postulated to represent Balkan prehistoric and historic ].<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Peričić | first1 = Marijana | display-authors = etal | title = High-Resolution Phylogenetic Analysis of Southeastern Europe Traces Major Episodes of Paternal Gene Flow Among Slavic Populations | journal = Molecular Biology and Evolution | volume = 22 | issue = 10| pages = 1964–1975 | doi = 10.1093/molbev/msi185 | pmid = 15944443 | date = October 2005 | doi-access = free }}</ref> Such lineages are also typically found in neighboring ] such as ] and ], in addition to ], ], ] and ].{{efn|See:<ref>{{Cite journal|url=http://www.fsigenetics.com/article/S1872-4973(11)00079-2/fulltext|title=Genetic data for 17 Y-chromosomal STR loci in Macedonians in the Republic of Macedonia|journal=Forensic Science International: Genetics|volume=5|issue=4|pages=e108–e111|access-date=18 March 2015|doi=10.1016/j.fsigen.2011.04.005|pmid=21549657|year=2011|last1=Jakovski|first1=Zlatko|last2=Nikolova|first2=Ksenija|last3=Jankova-Ajanovska|first3=Renata|last4=Marjanovic|first4=Damir|last5=Pojskic|first5=Naris|last6=Janeska|first6=Biljana}}</ref><ref name="pmid15361127">{{cite journal |vauthors=Petlichkovski A, Efinska-Mladenovska O, Trajkov D, Arsov T, Strezova A, Spiroski M |title=High-resolution typing of HLA-DRB1 locus in the Macedonian population |journal=Tissue Antigens |volume=64 |issue=4 |pages=486–491 |year=2004 |pmid=15361127 |doi=10.1111/j.1399-0039.2004.00273.x}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=''European Journal of Human Genetics'' – Y chromosomal heritage of Croatian population and its island isolates. | volume=11 |issue=7 | doi=10.1038/sj.ejhg.5200992 |pmid=12825075 |journal=European Journal of Human Genetics |pages=535–542|year=2003 |last1=Barać |first1=Lovorka |last2=Peričić |first2=Marijana |last3=Klarić |first3=Irena Martinović |last4=Rootsi |first4=Siiri |last5=Janićijević |first5=Branka |last6=Kivisild |first6=Toomas |last7=Parik |first7=Jüri |last8=Rudan |first8=Igor |last9=Villems |first9=Richard |last10=Rudan |first10=Pavao |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Semino |first1=Ornella |url=http://hpgl.stanford.edu/publications/Science_2000_v290_p1155.pdf |title=The Genetic Legacy of Paleolithic ''Homo sapiens sapiens'' in Extant Europeans: A Y Chromosome Perspective |journal=Science |volume=290 |pages=1155–1159 |year=2000 |pmid=11073453 |doi=10.1126/science.290.5494.1155 |last2=Passarino |first2=G |last3=Oefner |first3=PJ |last4=Lin |first4=AA |last5=Arbuzova |first5=S |last6=Beckman |first6=LE |last7=De Benedictis |first7=G |last8=Francalacci |first8=P |last9=Kouvatsi |first9=A |display-authors=8 |issue=5494 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031125151213/http://hpgl.stanford.edu/publications/Science_2000_v290_p1155.pdf |archive-date=25 November 2003 |df=dmy |bibcode=2000Sci...290.1155S }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|url=http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mksg/tan/2000/00000055/00000001/art00009;jsessionid=t6k1ukjgmoic.alexandra|title=HLA-DRB and -DQB1 polymorphism in the Macedonian population|access-date=18 March 2015|date=January 2000|doi=10.1034/j.1399-0039.2000.550109.x|last1=Hristova-Dimceva|first1=A.|last2=Verduijn|first2=W.|last3=Schipper|first3=R.F.|last4=Schreuder|first4=G.M.tH.|journal=Tissue Antigens|volume=55|issue=1|pages=53–56|pmid=10703609}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Rebala | first1 = K | display-authors = etal | year = 2007 | title = Y-STR variation among Slavs: evidence for the Slavic homeland in the middle Dnieper basin | journal = Journal of Human Genetics | volume = 52 | issue = 5| pages = 406–414 | doi = 10.1007/s10038-007-0125-6 | pmid = 17364156 | doi-access = free }}</ref><ref name ="balto-slavic">{{cite journal | last1 = Kushniarevich | first1 = Alena | display-authors = etal | year = 2015 | title = Genetic heritage of the Balto-Slavic speaking populations: a synthesis of autosomal, mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal data | journal = PLOS ONE | volume = 10 | issue = 9| page = e0135820 | doi = 10.1371/journal.pone.0135820 | pmid = 26332464 | pmc = 4558026 | bibcode = 2015PLoSO..1035820K | doi-access = free }}</ref><ref name = "GenesGeo">{{cite journal|last1=Novembre|first1=John|display-authors=etal|title=Genes mirror geography within Europe|journal=Nature|date=2008|volume=456|issue=7218|pages=98–101|doi=10.1038/nature07331|pmid=18758442|pmc=2735096|bibcode=2008Natur.456...98N}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author=P. Ralph |title=The Geography of Recent Genetic Ancestry across Europe |journal=] |volume=11 |issue=5 |year=2013 |doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.1001555 |page=e105090 |pmid=23667324 |pmc=3646727 |display-authors=etal|quote=Furthermore, our Greek and Macedonian samples share much higher numbers of common ancestors with Albanian speakers than with other neighbors, possibly a result of historical migrations, or else perhaps smaller effects of the Slavic expansion in these populations |doi-access=free }}</ref>}}


Y-DNA studies suggest that Macedonians along with neighboring South Slavs are distinct from other ] populations in Europe and near half of their ] are likely to be inherited from inhabitants of the Balkans that predated sixth-century Slavic migrations.<ref name="Rębała 406–414">{{Cite journal|last1=Rębała|first1=Krzysztof|last2=Mikulich|first2=Alexei I.|last3=Tsybovsky|first3=Iosif S.|last4=Siváková|first4=Daniela|last5=Džupinková|first5=Zuzana|last6=Szczerkowska-Dobosz|first6=Aneta|last7=Szczerkowska|first7=Zofia|date=2007-03-16|title=Y-STR variation among Slavs: evidence for the Slavic homeland in the middle Dnieper basin|journal=Journal of Human Genetics|volume=52|issue=5|pages=406–414|doi=10.1007/s10038-007-0125-6|pmid=17364156|issn=1434-5161|doi-access=free}}</ref> A diverse set of Y-DNA haplogroups are found in Macedonians at significant levels, including I2a1b, E-V13, J2a, R1a1, R1b, G2a, encoding a complex pattern of demographic processes.<ref>Renata Jankova et al., Y-chromosome diversity of the three major ethno-linguistic groups in the Republic of North Macedonia; Forensic Science International: Genetics; Volume 42, September 2019, Pages 165–170.</ref> Similar distributions of the same haplogroups are found in neighboring populations.<ref name ="balkan-ydna">Trombetta B. "Phylogeographic Refinement and Large Scale Genotyping of Human Y Chromosome Haplogroup E Provide New Insights into the Dispersal of Early Pastoralists in the African Continent" http://gbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/7/7/1940.long</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Spiroski | first1 = Mirko | last2 = Arsov | first2 = Todor | last3 = Krüger | first3 = Carmen | last4 = Willuweit | first4 = Sascha | last5 = Roewer | first5 = Lutz | year = 2005 | title = Y-chromosomal STR haplotypes in Macedonian population samples | journal = Forensic Science International | volume = 148 | issue = 1| pages = 69–74 | doi = 10.1016/j.forsciint.2004.04.067 | pmid = 15607593 }}</ref> I2a1b and R1a1 are typically found in Slavic-speaking populations across Europe<ref>], DNA Genealogy; ], Inc. USA, 2018; {{ISBN|1618966197}}, p. 211.</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Underhill | first1 = Peter A. | last2 = Poznik | first2 = G. David | last3 = Rootsi | first3 = Siiri | last4 = Järve | first4 = Mari | last5 = Lin | first5 = Alice A. | last6 = Wang | first6 = Jianbin | last7 = Passarelli | first7 = Ben | display-authors = etal | year = 2015| title = The phylogenetic and geographic structure of Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a | journal = European Journal of Human Genetics | volume = 23 | issue = 1| pages = 124–131 | doi = 10.1038/ejhg.2014.50 | pmid = 24667786 | pmc = 4266736 }} (Supplementary Table 4)</ref> while haplogroups such as E-V13 and J2 occur at high frequencies in neighboring non-Slavic populations.<ref name ="balkan-ydna"/> On the other hand R1b is the most frequently occurring haplogroup in ] and G2a is most frequently found in ] and the adjacent areas. According to a DNA data for 17 Y-chromosomal ] in Macedonians, in comparison to other South Slavs and ], the Macedonian population had the lowest genetic (Y-STR) distance against the Bulgarian population while having the largest distance against the ] population. However, the observed populations did not have significant differentiation in Y-STR population structure, except partially for Kosovo Albanians.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Jakovski | display-authors = etal | year = 2011 | title = Genetic data for 17 Y-chromosomal STR loci in Macedonians in the Republic of Macedonia | url = | journal = Forensic Sci. Int. Genet. | volume = 5| issue = 4| pages = e108–e111| doi = 10.1016/j.fsigen.2011.04.005 | pmid=21549657}}</ref> Genetic similarity, irrespective of language and ethnicity, has a strong correspondence to geographic proximity in European populations.<ref name = "balto-slavic"/><ref name = "GenesGeo"/><ref>{{Citation |vauthors=Lao O, Lu TT, Nothnagel M, etal |title=Correlation between genetic and geographic structure in Europe |journal=Curr. Biol. |volume=18 |issue=16 |pages=1241–1248 |date=August 2008 |pmid=18691889 |doi=10.1016/j.cub.2008.07.049 |s2cid=16945780 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2008CBio...18.1241L }}</ref>
A similar was passed against Greece for also violating Article 11 in regards of the members of the Greek far-left ] party, which claims to be the "Party of the Macedonian minority in Greece" despite the fact that it enjoys minimal public support in the area where the minority purportedly lives.


In regard to population genetics, not all regions of Southeastern Europe had the same ratio of native Byzantine and invading Slavic population, with the territory of the ] (], ] and ]) having a significant percentage of locals compared to Slavs. Considering that the majority of Balkan Slavs came via the Eastern Carpathian route, lower percentage in the east does not imply that the number of the Slavs there was lesser than among the ]. Most probably on the territory of Western South Slavs was a state of desolation which produced there a ].<ref>Florin Curta's An ironic smile: the Carpathian Mountains and the migration of the Slavs, Studia mediaevalia Europaea et orientalia. Miscellanea in honorem professoris emeriti Victor Spinei oblata, edited by George Bilavschi and Dan Aparaschivei, 47–72. Bucharest: Editura Academiei Române, 2018.</ref><ref>A. Zupan et al. The paternal perspective of the Slovenian population and its relationship with other populations;  Annals of Human Biology 40 (6) July 2013.</ref> The region of Macedonia suffered less disruption than frontier provinces closer to the Danube, with towns and forts close to ], ] and along the ]. Re-settlements and the cultural links of the Byzantine Era further shaped the demographic processes which the Macedonian ancestry is linked to.<ref>Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages: 500–1250. Florin Curta, 2006 https://books.google.com/books?id=YIAYMNOOe0YC&q=southeastern+europe,+curta</ref> Nevertheless, even present-day ] Greeks carry a small, but significant amount of Slavic ancestry; the ] ranged from 0.2% to 14.4%.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Stamatoyannopoulos |first1=George |last2=Bose |first2=Aritra |last3=Teodosiadis |first3=Athanasios |last4=Tsetsos |first4=Fotis |last5=Plantinga |first5=Anna |last6=Psatha |first6=Nikoletta |last7=Zogas |first7=Nikos |last8=Yannaki |first8=Evangelia |last9=Zalloua |first9=Pierre |last10=Kidd |first10=Kenneth K. |last11=Browning |first11=Brian L. |last12=Stamatoyannopoulos |first12=John |last13=Paschou |first13=Peristera |last14=Drineas |first14=Petros |date=2017 |title=Genetics of the peloponnesean populations and the theory of extinction of the medieval peloponnesean Greeks |journal=] |language=en |volume=25 |issue=5 |pages=637–645 |doi=10.1038/ejhg.2017.18 |pmid=28272534 |pmc=5437898 |issn=1476-5438}}</ref>
==Symbols==
{| align=right
|<gallery>
Image:Republic-of-Macedonia-coat-of-arms.svg|The official Coat of Arms
Image:Flag of Macedonia.svg|The flag of the Republic of Macedonia
</gallery>
|-
|<gallery>
Image:Mac coat arms unoff.gif|Unofficial Coat of Arms
Image:Flag of Macedonia 1991-95.svg|The Vergina Sun (1992 to 1995)</gallery>
|}
*'''''Sun:''''' The official ], adopted in 1995, is a yellow ] with eight broadening rays extending to the edges of the red field.
*'''''Coat of Arms:''''' After independence in 1992, the Republic of Macedonia retained the ] adopted in 1946 by the People's Assembly of the People's Republic of Macedonia on its second extraordinary session held on July 27, 1946, later on altered by article 8 of the Constitution of the ]. The coat-of-arms is composed by a double bent garland of ears of wheat, tobacco and poppy, tied by a ribbon with the embroidery of a traditional folk costume. In the center of such a circular room there are mountains, rivers, lakes and the sun; where the ears join there is a red five-pointed star, a traditional symbol of ]. All this is said to represent "the richness of our country, our struggle, and our freedom".

'''Unofficial symbols'''
*'''''Lion:''''' The lion first appears in 1595 in the Korenich-Neorich coat of arms, where the coat of arms of Macedonia is included among with those of eleven other countries. On the coat of arms is a crown, inside a yellow crowned ] is depicted standing rampant, on a red background. On the bottom enclosed in a red and yellow border is written "Macedonia". Later versions of these coat of arms include a more detailed crown and lion with the word "Macedonia" written in a scroll like style. These coat of arms have also been adopted as the official emblem of ], a Macedonian political party. Initially, it was adopted as a state symbol by Bulgaria.
*'''''Vergina Sun:''''' (official flag, 1992-1995) The ] is occasionally used to represent the Macedonian people by the diaspora through associations and cultural groups. The Vergina Sun is believed to have been associated with ] kings such as ] and ]. The symbol was discovered in the Greek region of ] and Greeks regard it as an exclusively Greek symbol, unrelated to Slavic cultures and it is copyrighted under ] as a State Emblem of Greece . The Vergina sun on a red field was the first flag of the independent ], until it was removed from the state flag under an agreement reached between the Republic of Macedonia and ] in September 1995. Nevertheless, the Vergina sun is still used unofficially as a national symbol by some groups in the country along with the new state flag.


==See also== ==See also==
*] {{Portal|North Macedonia}}
* ]
*]
*] * ]
* ]
*]
* ]
*]
*] * ]
* ]
* ]
* ]


==References== ==References==
{{reflist|group=lower-alpha}}
{{Reflist-2}}
{{reflist}}


==Notes== ==Bibliography==
*{{cite book|last1=Demeter|first1=Gábor|last2=Bottlik|first2=Zsolt|title=Maps in the Service of the Nation: The Role of Ethnic Mapping in Nation-Building and Its Influence on Political Decision-Making Across the Balkan Peninsula (1840–1914)|location=Berlin|publisher=Frank & Timme|year=2021}}
*Keith Brown, ''The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation'', Princeton University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-691-09995-2.
* {{cite book |last1=Levinson |first1=David |last2=O'Leary |first2=Timothy |title=Encyclopedia of World Cultures |publisher=G.K. Hall |year=1992 |isbn=0-8161-1808-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofwo0000unse_q6n9/page/239}}
*Jane K. Cowan (ed.), ''Macedonia: The Politics of Identity and Difference'', Pluto Press, 2000. A collection of articles.
*{{cite book|last=Wilkinson|first=Henry Robert|title=Maps and politics: a review of the ethnographic cartography of Macedonia|location=Liverpool|publisher=Liverpool University Press|year=1951}}
*Loring M. Danforth, ''The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World'', Princeton University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-691-04356-6.

*Anastasia N. Karakasidou, ''Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia, 1870-1990'', University Of Chicago Press, 1997, ISBN 0-226-42494-4. Reviewed in ''Journal of Modern Greek Studies'' '''18''':2 (2000), p465.
==Further reading==
*Peter Mackridge, Eleni Yannakakis (eds.), ''Ourselves and Others : The Development of a Greek Macedonian Cultural Identity since 1912'', Berg Publishers, 1997, ISBN 1-85973-138-4.
*Hugh Poulton, ''Who Are the Macedonians?'', Indiana University Press, 2nd ed., 2000. ISBN 0-253-21359-2. * Brown, Keith, ''The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation'', ], 2003. {{ISBN|0-691-09995-2}}.
* {{cite journal
*Victor Roudometof, ''Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict: Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question'', Praeger Publishers, 2002. ISBN 0-275-97648-3.
| last = Brunnbauer
*Τάσος Κωστόπουλος, ''Η απαγορευμένη γλώσσα: Η κρατική καταστολή των σλαβικών διαλέκτων στην ελληνική Μακεδονία σε όλη τη διάρκεια του 20ού αιώνα'' (εκδ. Μαύρη Λίστα, Αθήνα 2000).
| first = Ulf
|date=September 2004
| title = Fertility, families and ethnic conflict: Macedonians and Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia, 1944–2002
| journal=]
| volume = 32
| issue = 3
| pages = 565–598
| doi = 10.1080/0090599042000246406
| s2cid = 128830053
}}
* Cowan, Jane K. (ed.), ''Macedonia: The Politics of Identity and Difference'', Pluto Press, 2000. A collection of articles.
* {{Cite book|last=Curta|first=Florin|author-link=Florin Curta|title=The Making of the Slavs: History and Archaeology of the Lower Danube Region, c. 500–700|year=2001|location=Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rcFGhCVs0sYC|isbn=9781139428880}}
* {{Cite book|last=Curta|first=Florin|author-link=Florin Curta|title=Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500–1250|year=2006|location=Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press|url=https://archive.org/details/southeasterneuro0000curt|url-access=registration|isbn=9780521815390}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Curta |first=Florin |url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/48903516/The-Slavic-Lingua-Franca-by-Florin-Curta-2004 |title=The Slavic Lingua Franca. Linguistic Notes of an Archaeologist Turned Historian. |format=PDF |year=2004 |journal=East Central Europe |volume=31 |issue=1 |pages=125–148 |access-date=2009-07-24 |doi=10.1163/187633004x00134 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120814025431/http://www.scribd.com/doc/48903516/The-Slavic-Lingua-Franca-by-Florin-Curta-2004 |archive-date=14 August 2012 }}
* {{Cite book|last=Curta|first=Florin|author-link=Florin Curta|title=The Edinburgh History of the Greeks, c. 500 to 1050: The Early Middle Ages|year=2011|location=Edinburgh|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QCSrBgAAQBAJ|isbn=9780748644896}}
* Danforth, Loring M., ''The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World'', Princeton University Press, 1995. {{ISBN|0-691-04356-6}}.
* {{Cite book|last=Fine |first=John V A Jr. |title=The Early medieval Balkans. A Critical Survey from the 6th to the late 12th Century.|publisher=University Michigan Press|year=1991|isbn=9780472081493}}
* Karakasidou, Anastasia N., ''Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia, 1870–1990'', ], 1997, {{ISBN|0-226-42494-4}}. Reviewed in '']'' '''18''':2 (2000), p465.
* Mackridge, Peter, Eleni Yannakakis (eds.), ''Ourselves and Others: The Development of a Greek Macedonian Cultural Identity since 1912'', Berg Publishers, 1997, {{ISBN|1-85973-138-4}}.
* Poulton, Hugh, ''Who Are the Macedonians?'', ], 2nd ed., 2000. {{ISBN|0-253-21359-2}}.
* Roudometof, Victor, ''Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict: Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question'', Praeger Publishers, 2002. {{ISBN|0-275-97648-3}}.
* Κωστόπουλος, Τάσος, ''Η απαγορευμένη γλώσσα: Η κρατική καταστολή των σλαβικών διαλέκτων στην ελληνική Μακεδονία σε όλη τη διάρκεια του 20ού αιώνα'' (εκδ. Μαύρη Λίστα, Αθήνα 2000).
* The Silent People Speak, by Robert St. John, 1948, xii, 293, 301–313 and 385.
* {{cite web|last=Karatsareas|first=Petros|title=Greece's Macedonian Slavic heritage was wiped out by linguistic oppression – here's how
|date=19 April 2018 |url=https://theconversation.com/greeces-macedonian-slavic-heritage-was-wiped-out-by-linguistic-oppression-heres-how-94675|publisher=The Conversation|access-date=19 April 2018}}
* {{cite news|last=Margaronis|first=Maria|title=Greece's invisible minority – the Macedonian Slavs|work=BBC News|date=24 February 2019|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-47258809|access-date=24 February 2019}}


==External links== ==External links==
{{wikiquote|Macedonians (ethnic group)}}
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{{North Macedonia topics}}
{{Slavic ethnic groups}}
{{Authority control}}

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Revision as of 00:00, 25 December 2024

South Slavic ethnic group For the population of North Macedonia, see Demographics of North Macedonia. For the ancient people, see Ancient Macedonians. For other uses, see Macedonian (disambiguation) and Macedonian Slavs (disambiguation).

Ethnic group
Macedonians
Македонци
Makedonci
Map of the Macedonian diaspora in the world
Total population
c. 2-2.1 million
Regions with significant populations
North Macedonia North Macedonia 1,073,375
 Australia111,352 (2021 census)–200,000
 Germany115,210 (2020)
 Italy65,347-75,000 (2017)
 United States61,753–200,000
  Switzerland61,304–63,000
 Brazil45,000
 Canada43,110 (2016 census)–200,000
 Turkey31,518 (2001 census)
 Argentina30,000
 Greece10,000-70,000 (est., incl. Ethnicity)
 Austria20,135-25,000
 Netherlands10,000–15,000
 Serbia14,767 (2022 census)
 United Kingdom9,000 (est.)
 Finland8,963
 Hungary7,253
 Albania2,281 (2023 census)
 Denmark5,392 (2018)
 Slovakia4,600
 Sweden4,491 (2009)
 Croatia4,138 (2011 census)
 Slovenia3,972 (2002 census)
 Belgium3,419 (2002)
 Norway3,045
 France2,300–15,000
 Bosnia and Herzegovina2,278 (2005)
 Czech Republic2,011
 Poland2,000–4,500
 Romania1,264 (2011 census)
 Bulgaria1,143 (2021 census)
 Montenegro900 (2011 census)
 New Zealand807–1,500
 Portugal310
 Russia155
Languages
Macedonian
Religion
Predominantly Eastern Orthodox Christianity
(Macedonian Orthodox Church)
Minority Sunni Islam (Torbeši)
Catholicism
(Roman Catholic and Macedonian Greek Catholic)
Related ethnic groups
Other South Slavs, especially Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia, Bulgarians and Torlak speakers in Serbia

Macedonians (Macedonian: Македонци, romanizedMakedonci [maˈkɛdɔnt͡si]) are a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group native to the region of Macedonia in Southeast Europe. They speak Macedonian, a South Slavic language. The large majority of Macedonians identify as Eastern Orthodox Christians, who share a cultural and historical "Orthodox Byzantine–Slavic heritage" with their neighbours. About two-thirds of all ethnic Macedonians live in North Macedonia; there are also communities in a number of other countries.

The concept of a Macedonian ethnicity, distinct from their Orthodox Balkan neighbours, is seen to be a comparatively newly emergent one. The earliest manifestations of an incipient Macedonian identity emerged during the second half of the 19th century among limited circles of Slavic-speaking intellectuals, predominantly outside the region of Macedonia. They arose after the First World War and especially during the 1930s, and thus were consolidated by Communist Yugoslavia's governmental policy after the Second World War. The formation of the ethnic Macedonians as a separate community has been shaped by population displacement as well as by language shift, both the result of the political developments in the region of Macedonia during the 20th century. Following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the decisive point in the ethnogenesis of the South Slavic ethnic group was the creation of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia after World War II, a state in the framework of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. This was followed by the development of a separate Macedonian language and national literature, and the foundation of a distinct Macedonian Orthodox Church and national historiography.

History

Main article: History of the Macedonians (ethnic group) See also: Macedonian historiography and Macedonian nationalism

Ancient and Roman period

In antiquity, much of central-northern Macedonia (the Vardar basin) was inhabited by Paionians who expanded from the lower Strymon basin. The Pelagonian plain was inhabited by the Pelagones and the Lyncestae, ancient Greek tribes of Upper Macedonia; whilst the western region (Ohrid-Prespa) was said to have been inhabited by Illyrian tribes, such as the Enchelae. During the late Classical Period, having already developed several sophisticated polis-type settlements and a thriving economy based on mining, Paeonia became a constituent province of the ArgeadMacedonian kingdom. In 310 BC, the Celts attacked deep into the south, subduing various local tribes, such as the Dardanians, the Paeonians and the Triballi. Roman conquest brought with it a significant Romanization of the region. During the Dominate period, 'barbarian' foederati were settled on Macedonian soil at times; such as the Sarmatians settled by Constantine the Great (330s AD) or the (10 year) settlement of Alaric I's Goths. In contrast to 'frontier provinces', Macedonia (north and south) continued to be a flourishing Christian, Roman province in Late Antiquity and into the Early Middle Ages.

Medieval period

Linguistically, the South Slavic languages from which Macedonian developed are thought to have expanded in the region during the post-Roman period, although the exact mechanisms of this linguistic expansion remains a matter of scholarly discussion. Traditional historiography has equated these changes with the commencement of raids and 'invasions' of Sclaveni and Antes from Wallachia and western Ukraine during the 6th and 7th centuries. However, recent anthropological and archaeological perspectives have viewed the appearance of Slavs in Macedonia, and throughout the Balkans in general, as part of a broad and complex process of transformation of the cultural, political and ethnolinguistic Balkan landscape before the collapse of Roman authority. The exact details and chronology of population shifts remain to be determined. What is beyond dispute is that, in contrast to "barbarian" Bulgaria, northern Macedonia remained Roman in its cultural outlook into the 7th century. Yet at the same time, sources attest numerous Slavic tribes in the environs of Thessaloniki and further afield, including the Berziti in Pelagonia. Apart from Slavs and late Byzantines, Kuver's "Sermesianoi" – a mix of Byzantine Greeks, Bulgars and Pannonian Avars – settled the "Keramissian plain" (Pelagonia) around Bitola in the late 7th century. Later pockets of settlers included "Danubian" Bulgars in the 9th century; Magyars (Vardariotai) and Armenians in the 10th–12th centuries, Cumans and Pechenegs in the 11th–13th centuries, and Saxon miners in the 14th and 15th centuries. Vlachs (Aromanians) and Arbanasi (Albanians) also inhabited this area in the Middle ages and mingeled with the local Slavic-speakers.

Having previously been Byzantine clients, the Sklaviniae of Macedonia switched their allegiance to the Bulgarians with their incorporation into the Bulgarian Empire in the mid-800s. In the 860s, Byzantine missionaries Cyril and Methodius, created the Glagolitic alphabet and Slavonic liturgy based on the Slavic dialect around Thessaloniki for a mission to Great Moravia. After the demise of the Great Moravian mission in 886, exiled students of the two apostles brought the Glagolitic alphabet to the Bulgarian Empire, where Khan Boris I of Bulgaria (r. 852–889) welcomed them. As part of his efforts to limit Byzantine influence and assert Bulgarian independence, he adopted Slavic as official ecclesiastical and state language and established the Preslav Literary School and Ohrid Literary School, which taught Slavonic liturgy and the Glagolitic and subsequently the Cyrillic alphabet. The success of Boris I's efforts was a major factor in making the Slavs in Macedonia—and the other Slavs within the First Bulgarian State—into Bulgarians and transforming the Bulgar state into a Bulgarian state. Subsequently, the literary and ecclesiastical centre in Ohrid became a second cultural capital of medieval Bulgaria.

Ottoman period

See also: Macedonian Bulgarians and Slavic speakers in Ottoman Macedonia

After the final Ottoman conquest of the Balkans by the Ottomans in the 14/15th century, all Eastern Orthodox Christians were included in a specific ethno-religious community under Graeco-Byzantine jurisdiction called Rum Millet. Belonging to this religious commonwealth was so important that most of the common people began to identify themselves as Christians. However ethnonyms never disappeared and some form of primary ethnic identity was available. This is confirmed from a Sultan's Firman from 1680 which describes the ethnic groups in the Balkan territories of the Empire as follows: Greeks, Albanians, Serbs, Vlachs and Bulgarians.

Throughout the Middle Ages and Ottoman rule up until the early 20th century the Slavic-speaking population majority in the region of Macedonia were more commonly referred to (both by themselves and outsiders) as Bulgarians. However, in pre-nationalist times, terms such as "Bulgarian" did not possess a strict ethno-nationalistic meaning, rather, they were loose, often interchangeable terms which could simultaneously denote regional habitation, allegiance to a particular empire, religious orientation, membership in certain social groups. Similarly, a "Byzantine" was a Roman subject of Constantinople, and the term bore no strict ethnic connotations, Greek or otherwise. Overall, in the Middle Ages, "a person's origin was distinctly regional", and in Ottoman era, before the 19th-century rise of nationalism, it was based on the corresponding confessional community.

The rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century brought opposition to this continued situation. At that time, the classical Rum Millet began to degrade. The coordinated actions, carried out by Bulgarian national leaders and supported by the majority of the Slavic-speaking population in today's Republic of North Macedonia (the second anti-Greek revolt was in Skopje) to have a separate "Bulgarian Millet", finally bore fruit in 1870 when a firman for the creation of the Bulgarian Exarchate was issued. In September 1872, the Ecumenical Patriarch Anthimus VI declared the Exarchate schismatic and excommunicated its adherents, accusing them of having “surrendered Orthodoxy to ethnic nationalism”, i.e., "ethnophyletism" (Greek: εθνοφυλετισμός). At the time of its creation, the only Vardar Macedonian bishopric included in the Exarchate was Veles.

However, in 1874, the Christian population of the bishoprics of Skopje and Ohrid were given the chance to participate in a plebiscite, where they voted overwhelmingly in favour of joining the Exarchate (Skopje by 91%, Ohrid by 97%) Referring to the results of the plebiscites, and on the basis of statistical and ethnological indications, the 1876 Conference of Constantinople included all of present-day North Macedonia (except for the Debar region) and parts of present-day Greek Macedonia. The borders of new Bulgarian state, drawn by the 1878 Treaty of San Stefano, also included Macedonia, but the treaty was never put into effect and the Treaty of Berlin (1878) "returned" Macedonia to the Ottoman Empire.

For Christian Slav peasants, however, the choice between the Patriarchate and the Exarchate was not tainted with national meaning, but was a choice of Church or millet. Thus adherence to the Bulgarian national cause was attractive as a means of opposing oppressive Christian chiflik owners and urban merchants, who usually identified with the Greek nation, as a way to escape arbitrary taxation by Patriarchate bishops, via shifting allegiance to the Exarchate and on account of the free (and, occasionally, even subsidized) provision of education in Bulgarian schools. Alignment of the Slavs of Macedonia with the Bulgarian, the Greek or sometimes the Serbian national camp did not imply adherence to different national ideologies: these camps were not stable, culturally distinct groups, but parties with national affiliations, described by contemporaries as "sides", "wings", "parties" or "political clubs".

Identity

Georgi Pulevski is the first known person, who in 1875 put forward the idea on the existence of a separate (Slavic) Macedonian language and ethnicity.

The first expressions of Macedonian nationalism occurred in the second half of the 19th century mainly among intellectuals in Belgrade, Sofia, Thessaloniki and St. Petersburg. Since the 1850s some Slavic intellectuals from the area adopted the Greek designation Macedonian as a regional label, and it began to gain popularity. In the 1860s, according to Petko Slaveykov, some young intellectuals from Macedonia were claiming that they are not Bulgarians, but rather Macedonians, descendants of the Ancient Macedonians. Slaveikov, himself with Macedonian roots, started in 1866 the publication of the newspaper Makedoniya. Its main task was "to educate these misguided Grecomans there", who he called also Macedonists. In a letter written to the Bulgarian Exarch in February 1874 Petko Slaveykov reports that discontent with the current situation "has given birth among local patriots to the disastrous idea of working independently on the advancement of their own local dialect and what's more, of their own, separate Macedonian church leadership." The activities of these people were also registered by the Serbian politician Stojan Novaković, who promoted the idea to use the Macedonian nationalism in order to oppose the strong pro-Bulgarian sentiments in the area. The nascent Macedonian nationalism, illegal at home in the theocratic Ottoman Empire, and illegitimate internationally, waged a precarious struggle for survival against overwhelming odds: in appearance against the Ottoman Empire, but in fact against the three expansionist Balkan states and their respective patrons among the great powers.

The first known author that overtly speaks of a Macedonian nationality and language was Georgi Pulevski, who in 1875 published in Belgrade a Dictionary of Three languages: Macedonian, Albanian, Turkish, in which he wrote that the Macedonians are a separate nation and the place which is theirs is called Macedonia. In 1880, he published in Sofia a Grammar of the language of the Slavic Macedonian population, a work that is today known as the first attempt at a grammar of Macedonian. However, he alternately described his language as "Serbo-Albanian" and "Slavo-Macedonian" and himself as a "Mijak from Galičnik", a "Serbian patriot" and a "Bulgarian from the village of Galičnik", i.e. changing ethnicity multiple times during his lifetime. Therefore, his Macedonian self-identification is considered by historians to be inchoate and to resemble a regional phenomenon. In 1885, Theodosius of Skopje, a priest who held a high-ranking position within the Bulgarian Exarchate, was chosen as a bishop of the episcopacy of Skopje. In 1890 he renounced de facto the Bulgarian Exarchate and attempted to restore the Archbishopric of Ohrid as a separate Macedonian Orthodox Church in all eparchies of Macedonia, responsible for the spiritual, cultural and educational life of all Macedonian Orthodox Christians. During this time period Metropolitan Bishop Theodosius of Skopje made a plea to the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople to allow a separate Macedonian church, and ultimately on 4 December 1891 he sent a letter to the Pope Leo XIII to ask for a recognition and a protection from the Roman Catholic Church, but failed. Soon after, he repented and returned to pro-Bulgarian positions. In the 1880s and 1890s, Isaija Mažovski designated Macedonian Slavs as "Macedonians" and "Old Slavic Macedonian people", and also distinguished them from Bulgarians as follows: "Slavic-Bulgarian" for Mažovski was synonymous with "Macedonian", while only "Bulgarian" was a designation for the Bulgarians in Bulgaria.

In 1890, Austrian researcher of Macedonia Karl Hron reported that the Macedonians constituted a separate ethnic group by history and language. Within the next few years, this concept was also welcomed in Russia by linguists including Leonhard Masing, Pyotr Lavrov, Jan Baudouin de Courtenay, and Pyotr Draganov. Draganov, of Bulgarian descent, conducted research in Macedonia and determined that the local language had its own identifying characteristics compared to Bulgarian and Serbian. He wrote in a Saint Petersburg newspaper that the Macedonians should be recognized by Russia in a full national sense.

Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization leader Boris Sarafov in 1901 stated that Macedonians had a unique "national element" and, the following year, he stated "We the Macedonians are neither Serbs nor Bulgarians, but simply Macedonians... Macedonia exists only for the Macedonians." However after the failure of the Ilinden Uprising, Sarafov wanted to keep closer ties with Bulgaria, supporting the Bulgarian aspirations towards the area. Gyorche Petrov, another IMRO member, stated Macedonia was a "distinct moral unit" with its own "aspirations", while describing its Slavic population as Bulgarian.

National antagonisms and Macedonian separatism

See also: Macedonian Question

Macedonian separatism

Krste Misirkov in 1903 attempted to codify a standard Macedonian language and appealed for eventual recognition of a separate Macedonian nation when the necessary historical circumstances would arise.

In 1903, Krste Misirkov published in Sofia his book On Macedonian Matters, wherein he laid down the principles of the modern Macedonian nationhood and language. This book, written in the standardized central dialect of Macedonia, is considered by ethnic Macedonians as a milestone of the process of Macedonian awakening. Misirkov argued that the dialect of central Macedonia (Veles-Prilep-Bitola-Ohrid) should be adopted as a basis for a standard Macedonian literary language, in which Macedonians should write, study, and worship; the autocephalous Archbishopric of Ohrid should be restored; and the Slavic people of Macedonia should be recognized as a separate ethnic community, when the necessary historical circumstances would arise.

However, throughout the book, Misirkov lamented that "no local Macedonian patriotism exists" and stated that the Slavic Macedonian population had always called itself "Bulgarian". He also claimed that it was first the Byzantine Greeks who starting calling the local Slavs "Bulgarians" because of their alliance with the Bulgars, during the incessant Byzantine–Bulgarian conflict which in the eyes of the Byzantine Greeks eventually forged both Slavs and Bulgars into one people with a Bulgarian name and a Slavonic language. Misirkov's primary motivation for a separate Macedonian nationhood and language was Serbia and Bulgaria's conflict over Macedonia, which according to Misirkov would eventually lead to its partition. Therefore, he argued, it would be better for both Macedonians and Bulgarians if there was a united Macedonian Macedonia than a partitioned Bulgarian one, where Bulgaria would not be allowed to go any further than the left bank of the Vardar. In 1905, he returned to a pro-Bulgarian stance and renounced the positions he espoused in On Macedonian Matters. Later in his life, Misirkov oscillated between a pro-Macedonist and Greater Bulgarian stance, including controversially claimed that all Macedonian and Torlakian dialects were, in fact, Bulgarian.

Another major figure of the Macedonian awakening was Dimitrija Čupovski, one of the founders of the Macedonian Literary Society, established in Saint Petersburg in 1902. One of the members was also Krste Misirkov. In 1905 the Society published Vardar, the first scholarly, scientific and literary journal in the central dialects of Macedonia, which later would contribute in the standardization of Macedonian language. In 1913, the Macedonian Literary Society submitted the Memorandum of Independence of Macedonia to the British Foreign Secretary and other European ambassadors, and it was printed in many European newspapers. In the period 1913–1914, Čupovski published the newspaper Македонскi Голосъ (Macedonian Voice) in which he and fellow members of the Saint Petersburg Macedonian Colony propagated the existence of a Macedonian people separate from the Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbs, and sought to popularize the idea for an independent Macedonian state.

The "Macedonian Slavs" in cartography

From 1878 until 1918, most independent European observers viewed the Slavs of Macedonia as Bulgarians or as Macedonian Slavs, while their association with Bulgaria was almost universally accepted. Original manuscript versions of population data mentioned "Macedonian Slavs", though the term was changed to "Bulgarians" in the official printing. Western publications usually presented the Slavs of Macedonia as Bulgarians, as happened, partly for political reasons, in Serbian ones. Prompted by the publication of a Serbian map by Spiridon Gopčević claiming the Slavs of Macedonia as Serbs, a version of a Russian map, published in 1891, in a period of deterioration of Bulgarian-Russian relations, first presented Macedonia inhabited not by Bulgarians, but by Macedonian Slavs. Austrian-Hungarian maps followed suit in an effort to delegitimize the ambitions of Russophile Bulgaria, returning to presenting the Macedonian Slavs as Bulgarians when Austria-Bulgaria relations ameliorated, only to renege and employ the designation "Macedonian Slavs" when Bulgaria changed its foreign policy and Austria turned to envisaging an autonomous Macedonia under Austrian influence within the Murzsteg process.

The term "Macedonian Slavs" was used either as a middle solution between conflicting Serbian and Bulgarian claims, to denote an intermediary grouping of Slavs, associated with the Bulgarians, or to describe a separate Slavic group with no ethnic, national or political affiliation. The differentiation of ethnographic maps representing rival national views produced to satisfy the curiosity of European audience for the inhabitants of Macedonia, after the Ilinden uprising of 1903, indicated the complexity of the issue. Influenced by the conclusions of the research of young Serb Jovan Cvijić, that Macedonia's culture combined Byzantine influence with Serbian traditions, a map of 1903 by Austrian cartographer Karl Peucker depicted Macedonia as a peculiar area, where zones of linguistic influence overlapped. In his first ethnographic map of 1906, Cvijic presented all Slavs of Serbia and Macedonia merely as "Slavs". In a pamphlet translated and circulated in Europe the same year, he elaborated his ostensibly impartial views and described the Slavs living south of the Babuna and Plačkovica mountains as "Macedo-Slavs" arguing that the appellation "Bugari" meant simply "peasant" to them, that they had no national consciousness and could become Serbs or Bulgarians in the future. Cvijić thus transformed the political character of the IMRO's appeals to "Macedonians" into an ethnic one. Bulgarian cartographer Anastas Ishirkov countered Cvijić's views, pointing to the involvement of Macedonian Slavs in Bulgarian nationalist uprisings and the Macedonian origins of Bulgarian nationalists before 1878. Although Cvijic's arguments attracted the attention of Great Powers, they did not endorse at the time his view on the Macedo-Slavs.

  • Austrian ethnographic map of the vilayets of Kosovo, Saloniki, Scutari, Janina and Monastir, ca. 1900. Austrian ethnographic map of the vilayets of Kosovo, Saloniki, Scutari, Janina and Monastir, ca. 1900.
  • Ethnographical Map of Central and Southeastern Europe - War Office, London (1916) Ethnographical Map of Central and Southeastern Europe - War Office, London (1916)
  • Ethnographic map of the Balkans from the Serbian author Jovan Cvijic (1918) Ethnographic map of the Balkans from the Serbian author Jovan Cvijic (1918)
  • Greek map by Georgios Sotiriadis submitted to the Paris Peace Conference (1919) Greek map by Georgios Sotiriadis submitted to the Paris Peace Conference (1919)
  • Ethnographic map of the Balkans in the New Larned History (1922) Ethnographic map of the Balkans in the New Larned History (1922)

Cvijić further elaborated the idea that had first appeared in Peucker's map and in his map of 1909 he ingeniously mapped the Macedonian Slavs as a third group distinct from Bulgarians and Serbians, and part of them "under Greek influence". Envisioning a future agreement with Greece, Cvijic depicted the southern half of the Macedo-Slavs "under Greek unfluence", while leaving the rest to appear as a subset of the Serbo-Croats. Cvijić's view was reproduced without acknowledgement by Alfred Stead, with no effect on British opinion, but, reflecting the reorientation of Serbian aims towards dividing Macedonia with Greece, Cvijić eliminated the Macedo-Slavs from a subsequent edition of his map. However, in 1913, before the conclusion of the Treaty of Bucharest he published his third ethnographic map distinguishing the Macedo-Slavs between Skopje and Salonica from both Bulgarians and Serbo-Croats, on the basis of the transitional character of their dialect per the linguistic researches of Vatroslav Jagić and Aleksandar Belić, and the Serb features of their customs, such as the zadruga. For Cvijić, the Macedo-Slavs were a transitional population, with any sense of nationality they displayed being weak, superficial, externally imposed and temporary. Despite arguing that they should be considered neutral, he postulated their division into Serbs and Bulgarians based on dialectical and cultural features in anticipation of Serbian demands regarding the delimitation of frontiers.

A Balkan committee of experts rejected Cvijić's concept of the Macedo-Slavs in 1914. However, Bulgaria's entry into World War I on the side of the Central Powers in 1915, after the Allies failed to convince Serbia to hand over the Uncontested Zone in Macedonia to Bulgaria, precipitated a complete turnaround in the Allies' opinion of Macedonian ethnography, and several British and French maps echoing Cvijić were released within months. Thus, as the Entente approached victory in the First World War, a number other maps and atlases, including those produced by the Allies replicated Cvijić's ideas, especially its depiction of the Macedo-Slavs. The prevalence of the Yugoslav point of view, obliged Georgios Sotiriades, a professor of History at the University of Athens, to map the Macedo-Slavs as a distinct group in his work of 1918, that mirrored Greek views of the time and was used as an official document to advocate for Greece's positions in the Paris peace conference. After World War I, Cvijić's map became the point of reference for all Balkan ethnographic maps, while his concept of Macedo-Slavs was reproduced in almost all maps, including German maps, that acknowledged a Macedonian nation.

Macedonian Nationalism and Interwar Communism

After the Balkan Wars (1912–1913) and the World War I (1914–1918), following the division of the region of Macedonia amongst the Kingdom of Greece, the Kingdom of Bulgaria and the Kingdom of Serbia, the idea of belonging to a separate Macedonian nation was further spread among the Slavic-speaking population. The suffering during the wars, the endless struggle of the Balkan monarchies for dominance over the population increased the Macedonians' sentiment that the institutionalization of an independent Macedonian nation would put an end to their suffering. On the question of whether they were Serbs or Bulgarians, the people more often started answering: "Neither Bulgar, nor Serb... I am Macedonian only, and I'm sick of war." Stratis Myrivilis noted a specific instance of a Slav-speaking family wanting to be referred to, not as "Bulgar, Srrp, or Grrts", but as "Makedon ortodox". By the 1920s, following a negative reaction to the national proselytization of the previous decades, a majority of Christian Slavs inhabiting Greek and Vardar Macedonia used the collective name "Macedonians" to describe themselves, either as a nation or as a distinct ethnicity. The 1928 Greek census recorded 81,844 Slavo-Macedonian speakers, distinct from 16,755 Bulgarian speakers. In 1924 the Politis–Kalfov Protocol was signed between Greece and Bulgaria, concerning the protection of the Bulgarian minority In Greece. However, it was not ratified by the Greek side, because public opinion stood against the recognition of any “Bulgarian” minority". Prior to the 1930s, "it seems to have been acceptable" for Greeks to refer to Slavophones of Macedonia as Macedonians and their language as Macedonian. Ion Dragoumis had argued this viewpoint.

Dimitar Vlahov played a crucial role in the adoption of the Resolution of the Comintern on the Macedonian question that, for the first time by an international organization, recognized the existence of a separate Macedonian nation, in 1934

The consolidation of an international Communist organization (the Comintern) in the 1920s led to some failed attempts by the Communists to use the Macedonian Question as a political weapon. In the 1920 Yugoslav parliamentary elections, 25% of the total Communist vote came from Macedonia, but participation was low (only 55%), mainly because the pro-Bulgarian IMRO organised a boycott against the elections. In the following years, the communists attempted to enlist the pro-IMRO sympathies of the population in their cause. In the context of this attempt, in 1924 the Comintern organized the filed signing of the so-called May Manifesto, in which independence of partitioned Macedonia was required. In 1925 with the help of the Comintern, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (United) was created, composed of former left-wing Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) members. This organization promoted for the first time in 1932 the existence of a separate ethnic Macedonian nation. In 1933 the Communist Party of Greece, in a series of articles published in its official newspaper, the Rizospastis, criticizing Greek minority policy towards Slavic-speakers in Greek Macedonia, recognized the Slavs of the entire region of Macedonia as forming a distinct Macedonian ethnicity and their language as Macedonian. The idea of a Macedonian nation was internationalized and backed by the Comintern which issued in 1934 a resolution supporting the development of the entity. This action was attacked by the IMRO, but was supported by the Balkan communists. The Balkan communist parties supported the national consolidation of the ethnic Macedonian people and created Macedonian sections within the parties, headed by prominent IMRO (United) members.

World War II and Yugoslav nation-state building

The sense of belonging to a separate Macedonian nation gained credence during World War II when ethnic Macedonian communist partisan detachments were formed. In 1943 the Communist Party of Macedonia was established and the resistance movement grew up. On the other hand, due to the different trajectories of Macedonian Slavs in the three nation-states that ruled the region, the designation "Macedonian" acquired different meanings for them by the time of the National Liberation War of Macedonia in the 1940s. According to historian Ivan Katardžiev those who came from the Bulgarian part or were members of the IMRO (United) practically felt themselves as Bulgarians, while those who had experienced Serbian rule and had interacted with the Croatian and Slovenian national movements within Yugoslavia had developed a stronger Macedonian consciousness. After the World War II ethnic Macedonian institutions were created in the three parts of the region of Macedonia, then under communist control, including the establishment of the People's Republic of Macedonia within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRJ).

Metodija Andonov-Čento was the first president of the Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia after the Second World War.

The available data indicates that despite the policy of assimilation, pro-Bulgarian sentiments among the Macedonian Slavs in Yugoslavia were still sizable during the interwar period. However, if the Yugoslavians would recognize the Slavic inhabitants of Vardar Macedonia as Bulgarians, it would mean that the area should be part of Bulgaria. Practically in post-World War II Macedonia, Yugoslavia's state policy of forced Serbianisation was changed with a new one — of Macedonization. The codification of Macedonian and the recognition of the Macedonian nation had the main goal: finally to ban any Bulgarophilia among the Macedonians and to build a new consciousness, based on identification with Yugoslavia. As a result, Yugoslavia introduced again an abrupt de-Bulgarization of the people in the PR Macedonia, such as it already had conducted in the Vardar Banovina during the Interwar period. Bulgarian sources claim around 100,000 pro-Bulgarian elements were imprisoned for violations of the special Law for the Protection of Macedonian National Honour, and over 1,200 were allegedly killed. In this way generations of students grew up educated in a strong anti-Bulgarian sentiment which during the times of Communist Yugoslavia, increased to the level of state policy. Its main agenda was a result from the need to distinguish between the Bulgarians and the new Macedonian nation, because Macedonians could confirm themselves as a separate community with its own history, only through differentiating itself from Bulgaria. This policy has continued in the new Republic of Macedonia after 1990, although with less intensity. Thus, the Bulgarian part of the identity of the Slavic-speaking population in Vardar Macedonia has died out.

Contemporary state of identity and polemics

Kiro Gligorov was the first president of the Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia) after the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991.

Following the collapse of Yugoslavia, the issue of Macedonian identity emerged again. Nationalists and governments alike from neighbouring countries, especially Greece and Bulgaria, espouse the view that the Macedonian ethnicity is a modern, artificial creation. Such views have been seen by Macedonian historians to represent irredentist motives on Macedonian territory. Moreover, some historians point out that all modern nations are recent, politically motivated constructs based on creation "myths", that the creation of Macedonian identity is "no more or less artificial than any other identity", and that, contrary to the claims of Romantic nationalists, modern, territorially bound and mutually exclusive nation-states have little in common with their preceding large territorial or dynastic medieval empires, and any connection between them is tenuous at best. In any event, irrespective of shifting political affiliations, the Macedonian Slavs shared in the fortunes of the Byzantine commonwealth and the Rum millet and they can claim them as their heritage. Loring Danforth states similarly, the ancient heritage of modern Balkan countries is not "the mutually exclusive property of one specific nation" but "the shared inheritance of all Balkan peoples".

A more radical and uncompromising strand of Macedonian nationalism has recently emerged called "ancient Macedonism", or "Antiquisation". Proponents of this view see modern Macedonians as direct descendants of the ancient Macedonians. This view faces criticism by academics as it is not supported by archaeology or other historical disciplines and also could marginalize the Macedonian identity. Surveys on the effects of the controversial nation-building project Skopje 2014 and on the perceptions of the population of Skopje revealed a high degree of uncertainty regarding the latter's national identity. A supplementary national poll showed that there was a great discrepancy between the population's sentiment and the narrative the state sought to promote.

Additionally, during the last two decades, tens of thousands of citizens of North Macedonia have applied for Bulgarian citizenship. In the period since 2000 more than 100,000 acquired it, while ca. 50,000 applied and are still waiting. Bulgaria has a special ethnic dual-citizenship regime which makes a constitutional distinction between ethnic Bulgarians and Bulgarian citizens. In the case of the Macedonians, merely declaring their national identity as Bulgarian is enough to gain a citizenship. By making the procedure simpler, Bulgaria stimulates more Macedonian citizens (of Slavic origin) to apply for a Bulgarian citizenship. However, many Macedonians who apply for Bulgarian citizenship as Bulgarians by origin, have few ties with Bulgaria. Further, those applying for Bulgarian citizenship usually say they do so to gain access to member states of the European Union rather than to assert Bulgarian identity. This phenomenon is called placebo identity. Some Macedonians view the Bulgarian policy as part of a strategy to destabilize the Macedonian national identity. As a nation engaged in a dispute over its distinctiveness from Bulgarians, Macedonians have always perceived themselves as threatened by their neighbor. Bulgaria insists its neighbor admit the common historical roots of their languages and nations, a view Skopje continues to reject. As a result, Bulgaria blocked the official start of EU accession talks with North Macedonia.

Despite sizable number of Macedonians that have acquired Bulgarian citizenship since 2002 (ca. 9.7% of the Slavic population), only 3,504 citizens of North Macedonia declared themselves as ethnic Bulgarians in the 2021 census (roughly 0.31% from the Slavic population). The Bulgarian side does not accept these results as completely objective, citing as an example the census has counted less than 20,000 people with Bulgarian citizenship in the country, while in fact they are over 100,000.

Ethnonym

See also: Macedonians (obsolete terminology)

The national name derives from the Greek term Makedonía, related to the name of the region, named after the ancient Macedonians and their kingdom. It originates from the ancient Greek adjective makednos, meaning "tall", which shares its roots with the adjective makrós, meaning the same. The name is originally believed to have meant either "highlanders" or "the tall ones", possibly descriptive of these ancient people. In the Late Middle Ages the name of Macedonia had different meanings for Western Europeans and for the Balkan people. For the Westerners it denoted the historical territory of the Ancient Macedonia, but for the Balkan Christians, it covered the territories of the former Byzantine province of Macedonia, situated around modern Turkish Edirne.

With the conquest of the Balkans by the Ottomans in the late 14th century, the name of Macedonia disappeared as a geographical designation for several centuries. The name was revived just during the early 19th century, after the foundation of the modern Greek state with its Western Europe-derived obsession with Ancient Greece. As a result of the rise of nationalism in the Ottoman Empire, massive Greek religious and school propaganda occurred, and a process of Hellenization was implemented among Slavic-speaking population of the area. In this way, the name Macedonians was applied to the local Slavs, aiming to stimulate the development of close ties between them and the Greeks, linking both sides to the ancient Macedonians, as a counteract against the growing Bulgarian cultural influence into the region.

Although the local intellectuals initially rejected the Macedonian designation as Greek, since the 1850s some of them, adopted it as a regional identity, and this name began to gain popularity. Serbian politics then, also encouraged this kind of regionalism to neutralize the Bulgarian influx, thereby promoting Serbian interests there. The local educator Kuzman Shapkarev concluded that since the 1870s this foreign ethnonym began to replace the traditional one Bulgarians. At the dawn of the 20th century the Bulgarian teacher Vasil Kanchov marked that the local Bulgarians and Koutsovlachs call themselves Macedonians, and the surrounding people also call them in the same way. During the interbellum Bulgaria also supported to some extent the Macedonian regional identity, especially in Yugoslavia. Its aim was to prevent the Serbianization of the local Slavic speakers, because the very name Macedonia was prohibited in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Ultimately the designation Macedonian, changed its status in 1944, and went from being predominantly a regional, ethnographic denomination, to a national one.

Population

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The vast majority of Macedonians live along the valley of the river Vardar, the central region of the Republic of North Macedonia. They form about 64.18% of the population of North Macedonia (1,297,981 people according to the 2002 census). Smaller numbers live in eastern Albania, northern Greece, and southern Serbia, mostly abutting the border areas of the Republic of North Macedonia. A large number of Macedonians have immigrated overseas to Australia, the United States, Canada, New Zealand and to many European countries: Germany, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Austria among others.

Balkans

Greece

See also: Slavic-speakers of Greek Macedonia

The existence of an ethnic Macedonian minority in Greece is rejected by the Greek government. The number of people speaking Slavic dialects has been estimated at somewhere between 10,000 and 250,000. Most of these people however do not have an ethnic Macedonian national consciousness, with most choosing to identify as ethnic Greeks or rejecting both ethnic designations and preferring terms such as "natives" instead. In 1999 the Greek Helsinki Monitor estimated that the number of people identifying as ethnic Macedonians numbered somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000, Macedonian sources generally claim the number of ethnic Macedonians living in Greece at somewhere between 200,000 and 350,000. The ethnic Macedonians in Greece have faced difficulties from the Greek government in their ability to self-declare as members of a "Macedonian minority" and to refer to their native language as "Macedonian".

Since the late 1980s there has been an ethnic Macedonian revival in Northern Greece, mostly centering on the region of Florina. Since then ethnic Macedonian organisations including the Rainbow political party have been established. Rainbow first opened its offices in Florina on 6 September 1995. The following day, the offices had been broken into and had been ransacked. Later Members of Rainbow had been charged for "causing and inciting mutual hatred among the citizens" because the party had bilingual signs written in both Greek and Macedonian. On 20 October 2005, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) ordered the Greek government to pay penalties to the Rainbow Party for violations of 2 ECHR articles. Rainbow has seen limited success at a national level, its best result being achieved in the 1994 European elections, with a total of 7,263 votes. Since 2004 it has participated in European Parliament elections and local elections, but not in national elections. A few of its members have been elected in local administrative posts. Rainbow has recently re-established Nova Zora, a newspaper that was first published for a short period in the mid-1990s, with reportedly 20,000 copies being distributed free of charge.

Serbia

Main article: Macedonians in Serbia

Within Serbia, Macedonians constitute an officially recognised ethnic minority at both a local and national level. Within Vojvodina, Macedonians are recognised under the Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, along with other ethnic groups. Large Macedonian settlements within Vojvodina can be found in Plandište, Jabuka, Glogonj, Dužine and Kačarevo. These people are mainly the descendants of economic migrants who left the Socialist Republic of Macedonia in the 1950s and 1960s. The Macedonians in Serbia are represented by a national council and in recent years Macedonian has begun to be taught. The most recent census recorded 22,755 Macedonians living in Serbia.

Albania

Main article: Macedonians of Albania

Macedonians represent the second largest ethnic minority population in Albania. Albania recognises the existence of a Macedonian minority within the Mala Prespa region, most of which is comprised by Pustec Municipality. Macedonians have full minority rights within this region, including the right to education and the provision of other services in Macedonian. There also exist unrecognised Macedonian populations living in the Golo Brdo region, the "Dolno Pole" area near the town of Peshkopi, around Lake Ohrid and Korce as well as in Gora. 4,697 people declared themselves Macedonians in the 1989 census.

Bulgaria

Main article: Ethnic Macedonians in Bulgaria

Bulgarians are considered most closely related to the neighboring Macedonians, and it is sometimes claimed that there is no clear ethnic difference between them. A total of 1,143 people officially declared themselves to be ethnic Macedonians in the last Bulgarian census in 2021. During the same year, there were five times as many Bulgarian residents born in North Macedonia, 5,450. Most of them held Bulgarian citizenship, with only 1,576 of them being citizens of the Republic of North Macedonia. According to the 2011 Bulgarian census, there were 561 ethnic Macedonians (0.2%) in the Blagoevgrad Province, the Bulgarian part of the geographical region of Macedonia, out of a total of 1,654 Macedonians in the entire country. Also, a total of 429 citizens of the Republic of North Macedonia resided in the province.

In 1998, Krassimir Kanev, chairman of the non-governmental organization Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, claimed that there were 15,000–25,000 ethnic Macedonians in Bulgaria (see here). In the same report, Macedonian nationalists (Popov et al., 1989) claimed that 200,000 ethnic Macedonians lived in Bulgaria. However, according to the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, the vast majority of the Slavic-speaking population in Pirin Macedonia had a Bulgarian national self-consciousness and a regional Macedonian identity similar to the Macedonian regional identity in Greek Macedonia. According to ethnic Macedonian political activist, Stoyko Stoykov, the number of Bulgarian citizens with ethnic Macedonian self-consciousness in 2009 was between 5,000 and 10,000. In 2000, the Bulgarian Constitutional Court banned UMO Ilinden-Pirin, a small Macedonian political party, as a separatist organization. Subsequently, activists attempted to re-establish the party but could not gather the required number of signatures.

  • Macedonians in North Macedonia, according to the 2002 census Macedonians in North Macedonia, according to the 2002 census
  • Concentration of Macedonians in Serbia Concentration of Macedonians in Serbia
  • Regions where Macedonians live within Albania Regions where Macedonians live within Albania
  • Macedonian Muslims in North Macedonia Macedonian Muslims in North Macedonia

Diaspora

Further information: Macedonian diaspora
Macedonian diaspora in the world (includes people with Macedonian ancestry or citizenship).
  North Macedonia   + 100,000   + 10,000   + 1,000

Significant Macedonian communities can also be found in the traditional immigrant-receiving nations, as well as in Western European countries. Census data in many European countries (such as Italy and Germany) does not take into account the ethnicity of émigrés from the Republic of North Macedonia.

Argentina

Most Macedonians can be found in Buenos Aires, the Pampas and Córdoba. An estimated 30,000 Macedonians can be found in Argentina.

Australia

Further information: Macedonian Australians

The official number of Macedonians in Australia by birthplace or birthplace of parents is 83,893 (2001). The main Macedonian communities are found in Melbourne, Geelong, Sydney, Wollongong, Newcastle, Canberra and Perth. The 2006 census recorded 83,983 people of Macedonian ancestry and the 2011 census recorded 93,570 people of Macedonian ancestry.

Brazil

An estimated 45,000 people in Brazil are of Macedonian ancestry. The Macedonians can be primarily found in Porto Alegre, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Curitiba.

Canada

Further information: Macedonian Canadians

The Canadian census in 2001 records 37,705 individuals claimed wholly or partly Macedonian heritage in Canada, although community spokesmen have claimed that there are actually 100,000–150,000 Macedonians in Canada.

United States

Further information: Macedonian Americans

A significant Macedonian community can be found in the United States. The official number of Macedonians in the US is 49,455 (2004). The Macedonian community is located mainly in Michigan, New York, Ohio, Indiana and New Jersey

Germany

Further information: Macedonians in Germany

There are an estimated 61,000 citizens of North Macedonia in Germany (mostly in the Ruhrgebiet) (2001).

Italy

There are 74,162 citizens of North Macedonia in Italy (Foreign Citizens in Italy).

Switzerland

Further information: Macedonians in Switzerland

In 2006 the Swiss Government recorded 60,362 Macedonian Citizens living in Switzerland.

Romania

Further information: Macedonians in Romania

Macedonians are an officially recognised minority group in Romania. They have a special reserved seat in the nation's parliament. In 2002, they numbered 731.

Slovenia

Further information: Macedonians in Slovenia

Macedonians began relocating to Slovenia in the 1950s when the two regions formed a part of a single country, Yugoslavia.

Other countries

Sizeable Macedonian communities can also be found in the United Kingdom, as well as in European Union countries, like the Netherlands, Austria and France.

Culture

Main article: Culture of North Macedonia
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The culture of the people is characterized with both traditionalist and modernist attributes. It is strongly bound with their native land and the surrounding in which they live. The rich cultural heritage of the Macedonians is accented in the folklore, the picturesque traditional folk costumes, decorations and ornaments in city and village homes, the architecture, the monasteries and churches, iconostasis, wood-carving and so on. The culture of Macedonians can roughly be explained as Balkanic, closely related to that of Bulgarians and Serbs.

Architecture

Ottoman architecture in Ohrid.
Macedonian girls in traditional folk costumes.

The typical Macedonian village house is influenced by Ottoman Architecture. Presented as a construction with two floors, with a hard facade composed of large stones and a wide balcony on the second floor. In villages with predominantly agricultural economy, the first floor was often used as a storage for the harvest, while in some villages the first floor was used as a cattle-pen.

The stereotype for a traditional Macedonian city house is a two-floor building with white façade, with a forward extended second floor, and black wooden elements around the windows and on the edges.

Cinema and theater

Main article: Cinema of North Macedonia

The history of film making in North Macedonia dates back over 110 years. The first film to be produced on the territory of the present-day the country was made in 1895 by Janaki and Milton Manaki in Bitola. In 1995 Before the Rain became the first Macedonian movie to be nominated for an Academy Award.

From 1993 to 1994, 1,596 performances were held in the newly formed republic, and more than 330,000 people attended. The Macedonian National Theater (drama, opera, and ballet companies), the Drama Theater, the Theater of the Nationalities (Albanian and Turkish drama companies) and the other theater companies comprise about 870 professional actors, singers, ballet dancers, directors, playwrights, set and costume designers, etc. There is also a professional theatre for children and three amateur theaters. For the last thirty years a traditional festival of Macedonian professional theaters has been taking place in Prilep in honor of Vojdan Černodrinski, the founder of the modern Macedonian theater. Each year a festival of amateur and experimental Macedonian theater companies is held in Kočani.

Music and art

Main article: Music of North Macedonia

Macedonian music has many things in common with the music of neighboring Balkan countries, but maintains its own distinctive sound.

The founders of modern Macedonian painting included Lazar Licenovski, Nikola Martinoski, Dimitar Pandilov, and Vangel Kodzoman. They were succeeded by an exceptionally talented and fruitful generation, consisting of Borka Lazeski, Dimitar Kondovski, Petar Mazev who are now deceased, and Rodoljub Anastasov and many others who are still active. Others include: Vasko Taskovski and Vangel Naumovski. In addition to Dimo Todorovski, who is considered to be the founder of modern Macedonian sculpture, the works of Petar Hadzi Boskov, Boro Mitrikeski, Novak Dimitrovski and Tome Serafimovski are also outstanding.

Economy

In the past, the Macedonian population was predominantly involved with agriculture, with a very small portion of the people who were engaged in trade (mainly in the cities). But after the creation of the People's Republic of Macedonia which started a social transformation based on Socialist principles, middle and heavy industries were started.

Language

Main article: Macedonian language

Macedonian (македонски јазик) is a member of the Eastern group of South Slavic languages. Standard Macedonian was implemented as the official language of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia after being codified in the 1940s, and has accumulated a thriving literary tradition.

The closest relative of Macedonian is Bulgarian, followed by Serbo-Croatian. All the South Slavic languages form a dialect continuum, in which Macedonian and Bulgarian form an Eastern subgroup. The Torlakian dialect group is intermediate between Bulgarian, Macedonian and Serbian, comprising some of the northernmost dialects of Macedonian as well as varieties spoken in southern Serbia and western Bulgaria. Torlakian is often classified as part of the Eastern South Slavic dialects.

The Macedonian alphabet is an adaptation of the Cyrillic script, as well as language-specific conventions of spelling and punctuation. It is rarely Romanized.

Religion

Main articles: Macedonian Orthodox Church – Ohrid Archbishopric, Macedonian Orthodox Church, Roman Catholicism in North Macedonia, Macedonian Greek Catholic Church, Protestantism in North Macedonia, and Islam in North Macedonia
One of the well-known monasteries – St. Panteleimon in Ohrid.

Most Macedonians are members of the Macedonian Orthodox Church. The official name of the church is Macedonian Orthodox Church – Ohrid Archbishopric and is the body of Christians who are united under the Archbishop of Ohrid and North Macedonia, exercising jurisdiction over Macedonian Orthodox Christians in the Republic of North Macedonia and in exarchates in the Macedonian diaspora.

The church gained autonomy from the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1959 and declared the restoration of the historic Archbishopric of Ohrid. On 19 July 1967, the Macedonian Orthodox Church declared autocephaly from the Serbian church. Due to protest from the Serbian Orthodox Church, the move was not recognised by any of the churches of the Eastern Orthodox Communion. Thereafter, Macedonian Orthodox Church was not in communion with any Orthodox Church, until 2022 when it was reintegrated. A small number of Macedonians belong to the Roman Catholic and the Protestant churches.

Between the 15th and the 20th centuries, during Ottoman rule, a number of Orthodox Macedonian Slavs converted to Islam. Today in the Republic of North Macedonia, they are regarded as Macedonian Muslims, who constitute the second largest religious community of the country.

Names

Main article: Macedonian names

Cuisine

Main article: Macedonian cuisine
Tavče Gravče, the national dish of Macedonians.

Macedonian cuisine is a representative of the cuisine of the Balkans—reflecting Mediterranean (Greek) and Middle Eastern (Turkish) influences, and to a lesser extent Italian, German and Eastern European (especially Hungarian) ones. The relatively warm climate in North Macedonia provides excellent growth conditions for a variety of vegetables, herbs and fruits. Thus, Macedonian cuisine is particularly diverse.

Shopska salad, a food from Bulgaria, is an appetizer and side dish which accompanies almost every meal. Macedonian cuisine is also noted for the diversity and quality of its dairy products, wines, and local alcoholic beverages, such as rakija. Tavče Gravče and mastika are considered the national dish and drink of North Macedonia, respectively.

Symbols

See also: List of flags of North Macedonia and National symbols of North Macedonia

Symbols used by members of the ethnic group include:

  • Lion: The lion first appears in the Fojnica Armorial from the 17th century, where the coat of arms of Macedonia is included among those of other entities. On the coat of arms is a crown; inside a yellow crowned lion is depicted standing rampant, on a red background. On the bottom enclosed in a red and yellow border is written "Macedonia". The use of the lion to represent Macedonia was continued in foreign heraldic collections throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. Nevertheless, during the late 19th century the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization arose, which modeled itself after the earlier Bulgarian revolutionary traditions and adopted their symbols as the lion, etc. Modern versions of the historical lion has also been added to the emblem of several political parties, organizations and sports clubs. However, this symbol is not totally accepted while the state coat of arms of Bulgaria is somewhat similar.
Flag of the Republic of Macedonia (1992–1995) depicting the Vergina Sun
  • Vergina Sun: (official flag, 1992–1995) The Vergina Sun is used unofficially by various associations and cultural groups in the Macedonian diaspora. The Vergina Sun is believed to have been associated with ancient Greek kings such as Alexander the Great and Philip II, although it was used as an ornamental design in ancient Greek art long before the Macedonian period. The symbol was depicted on a golden larnax found in a 4th-century BC royal tomb belonging to either Philip II or Philip III of Macedon in the Greek region of Macedonia. The Greeks regard the use of the symbol by North Macedonia as a misappropriation of a Hellenic symbol, unrelated to Slavic cultures, and a direct claim on the legacy of Philip II. However, archaeological items depicting the symbol have also been excavated in the territory of North Macedonia. Toni Deskoski, Macedonian professor of International Law, argues that the Vergina Sun is not a Macedonian symbol but it's a Greek symbol that is used by Macedonians in the nationalist context of Macedonism and that the Macedonians need to get rid of it. In 1995, Greece lodged a claim for trademark protection of the Vergina Sun as a state symbol under WIPO. In Greece the symbol against a blue field is used vastly in the area of Macedonia and it has official status.The Vergina sun on a red field was the first flag of the independent Republic of Macedonia, until it was removed from the state flag under an agreement reached between the Republic of Macedonia and Greece in September 1995. On 17 June 2018, Greece and the Republic of Macedonia signed the Prespa Agreement, which stipulates the removal of the Vergina Sun's public use across the latter's territory. In a session held on early July 2019, the government of North Macedonia announced the complete removal of the Vergina Sun from all public areas, institutions and monuments in the country, with the deadline for its removal being set to 12 August 2019, in line with the Prespa Agreement.

Genetics

Balto-Slavic populations comprised genetically by: A (autosomal DNA), B (Y-DNA) and C (mtDNA) on the plots (Macedonian samples are marked as Mc in brown colored circle).

Anthropologically, Macedonians possess genetic lineages postulated to represent Balkan prehistoric and historic demographic processes. Such lineages are also typically found in neighboring South Slavs such as Bulgarians and Serbs, in addition to Greeks, Albanians, Romanians and Gagauzes.

Y-DNA studies suggest that Macedonians along with neighboring South Slavs are distinct from other Slavic-speaking populations in Europe and near half of their Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups are likely to be inherited from inhabitants of the Balkans that predated sixth-century Slavic migrations. A diverse set of Y-DNA haplogroups are found in Macedonians at significant levels, including I2a1b, E-V13, J2a, R1a1, R1b, G2a, encoding a complex pattern of demographic processes. Similar distributions of the same haplogroups are found in neighboring populations. I2a1b and R1a1 are typically found in Slavic-speaking populations across Europe while haplogroups such as E-V13 and J2 occur at high frequencies in neighboring non-Slavic populations. On the other hand R1b is the most frequently occurring haplogroup in Western Europe and G2a is most frequently found in Caucasus and the adjacent areas. According to a DNA data for 17 Y-chromosomal STR loci in Macedonians, in comparison to other South Slavs and Kosovo Albanians, the Macedonian population had the lowest genetic (Y-STR) distance against the Bulgarian population while having the largest distance against the Croatian population. However, the observed populations did not have significant differentiation in Y-STR population structure, except partially for Kosovo Albanians. Genetic similarity, irrespective of language and ethnicity, has a strong correspondence to geographic proximity in European populations.

In regard to population genetics, not all regions of Southeastern Europe had the same ratio of native Byzantine and invading Slavic population, with the territory of the Eastern Balkans (Macedonia, Thrace and Moesia) having a significant percentage of locals compared to Slavs. Considering that the majority of Balkan Slavs came via the Eastern Carpathian route, lower percentage in the east does not imply that the number of the Slavs there was lesser than among the Western South Slavs. Most probably on the territory of Western South Slavs was a state of desolation which produced there a founder effect. The region of Macedonia suffered less disruption than frontier provinces closer to the Danube, with towns and forts close to Ohrid, Bitola and along the Via Egnatia. Re-settlements and the cultural links of the Byzantine Era further shaped the demographic processes which the Macedonian ancestry is linked to. Nevertheless, even present-day Peloponnesian Greeks carry a small, but significant amount of Slavic ancestry; the admixture ranged from 0.2% to 14.4%.

See also

References

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  38. "Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States", p. 517 The Macedonians are a Southern Slav people, closely related to Bulgarians.
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  42. Sperling, James; Kay, Sean; Papacosma, S. Victor (2003). Limiting institutions?: the challenge of Eurasian security governance. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. p. 57. ISBN 978-0-7190-6605-4. Macedonian nationalism Is a new phenomenon. In the early twentieth century, there was no separate Slavic Macedonian identity
  43. Titchener, Frances B.; Moorton, Richard F. (1999). The eye expanded: life and the arts in Greco-Roman antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 259. ISBN 978-0-520-21029-5. On the other hand, the Macedonians are a newly emergent people in search of a past to help legitimize their precarious present as they attempt to establish their singular identity in a Slavic world dominated historically by Serbs and Bulgarians. ... The twentieth-century development of a Macedonian ethnicity, and its recent evolution into independent statehood following the collapse of the Yugoslav state in 1991, has followed a rocky road. In order to survive the vicissitudes of Balkan history and politics, the Macedonians, who have had no history, need one.
  44. Kaufman, Stuart J. (2001). Modern hatreds: the symbolic politics of ethnic war. New York: Cornell University Press. p. 193. ISBN 0-8014-8736-6. The key fact about Macedonian nationalism is that it is new: in the early twentieth century, Macedonian villagers defined their identity religiously—they were either "Bulgarian," "Serbian," or "Greek" depending on the affiliation of the village priest. ... According to the new Macedonian mythology, modern Macedonians are the direct descendants of Alexander the Great's subjects. They trace their cultural identity to the ninth-century Saints Cyril and Methodius, who converted the Slavs to Christianity and invented the first Slavic alphabet, and whose disciples maintained a centre of Christian learning in western Macedonia. A more modern national hero is Gotse Delchev, leader of the turn-of-the-century Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), which was actually a largely pro-Bulgarian organization but is claimed as the founding Macedonian national movement.
  45. Rae, Heather (2002). State identities and the homogenisation of peoples. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 278. ISBN 0-521-79708-X. Despite the recent development of Macedonian identity, as Loring Danforth notes, it is no more or less artificial than any other identity. It merely has a more recent ethnogenesis – one that can therefore more easily be traced through the recent historical record.
  46. Zielonka, Jan; Pravda, Alex (2001). Democratic consolidation in Eastern Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 422. ISBN 978-0-19-924409-6. Unlike the Slovene and Croatian identities, which existed independently for a long period before the emergence of SFRY Macedonian identity and language were themselves a product federal Yugoslavia, and took shape only after 1944. Again unlike Slovenia and Croatia, the very existence of a separate Macedonian identity was questioned—albeit to a different degree—by both the governments and the public of all the neighboring nations (Greece being the most intransigent)
  47. Bonner, Raymond (14 May 1995). "The World; The Land That Can't Be Named". The New York Times. New York. Archived from the original on 29 January 2019. Retrieved 29 January 2019. Macedonian nationalism did not arise until the end of the last century.
  48. Rossos, Andrew (2008). Macedonia and the Macedonians: A History (PDF). Hoover Institution Press. p. 269. ISBN 978-0817948832. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 January 2019. Retrieved 28 January 2019. They were also insisting that the Macedonians sacrifice their national name, under which, as we have seen throughout this work, their national identity and their nation formed in the nineteenth century.
  49. Rossos, Andrew (2008). Macedonia and the Macedonians: A History (PDF). Hoover Institution Press. p. 284. ISBN 978-0817948832. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 January 2019. Retrieved 28 January 2019. Under very trying circumstances, most ethnic Macedonians chose a Macedonian identity. That identity began to form with the Slav awakening in Macedonia in the first half of the nineteenth century.
  50. Loring M. Danforth, The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World, 1995, Princeton University Press, p.65, ISBN 0-691-04356-6
  51. Stephen Palmer, Robert King, Yugoslav Communism and the Macedonian question, Hamden, Connecticut Archon Books, 1971, p.p.199-200
  52. Livanios, Dimitris (17 April 2008). The Macedonian Question: Britain and the Southern Balkans 1939–1949. OUP Oxford. ISBN 9780191528729. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  53. ^ Woodhouse, Christopher M. (2002). The Struggle for Greece, 1941–1949. Hurst. ISBN 9781850654926. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  54. ^ Poulton, Hugh (1995). Who are the Macedonians?. Hurst. ISBN 9781850652380. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  55. James Horncastle, The Macedonian Slavs in the Greek Civil War, 1944–1949; Rowman & Littlefield, 2019, ISBN 1498585051, p. 130.
  56. Stern, Dieter and Christian Voss (eds). 2006. "Towards the peculiarities of language shift in Northern Greece". In: "Marginal Linguistic Identities: Studies in Slavic Contact and Borderland Varieties." Eurolinguistische Arbeiten. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz Verlag; ISBN 9783447053549, pp. 87–101.
  57. A J Toynbee. Some Problems of Greek History, Pp 80; 99–103
  58. The Problem of the Discontinuity in Classical and Hellenistic Eastern Macedonia, Marjan Jovanonv. УДК 904:711.424(497.73)
  59. A Companion to Ancient Macedonia. Wiley -Blackwell, 2011. Map 2
  60. Peter Heather, Goths and Romans 332–489. p. 129
  61. ^ Macedonia in Late Antiquity p. 551. In A Companion to Ancient Macedonia. Wiley -Blackwell, 2011
  62. ^ Curta, Florin (2012). "Were there any Slavs in seventh-century Macedonia?". Journal of History. 47: 73.
  63. Curta (2004, p. 148)
  64. Fine (1991, p. 29)
  65. T E Gregory, A History of Byzantium. Wiley- Blackwell, 2010. p. 169
  66. Curta (2001, pp. 335–345)
  67. Florin Curta. Were there any Slavs in seventh-century Macedonia? 2013
  68. The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia, Denis Sinor, Cambridge University Press, 1990, ISBN 0521243041, pp. 215–216.
  69. Fine 1991, pp. 71.
  70. Во некрополата "Млака" пред тврдината во Дебреште, Прилеп, откопани се гробови со наоди од доцниот 7. и 8. век. Тие се делумно или целосно кремирани и не се ниту ромеjски, ниту словенски. Станува збор наjвероjатно, за Кутригурите. Ова протобугарско племе, под водство на Кубер, а како потчинето на аварскиот каган во Панониjа, околу 680 г. се одметнало од Аварите и тргнало кон Солун. Кубер ги повел со себе и Сермесиjаните, (околу 70.000 на број), во нивната стара татковина. Сермесиjаните биле Ромеи, жители на балканските провинции што Аварите ги заробиле еден век порано и ги населиле во Западна Панониjа, да работат за нив. На Кубер му била доверена управата врз нив. In English: In the necropolis 'Malaka' in the fortress of Debreshte, near Prilep, graves were dug with findings from the late 7th and early 8th century. They are partially or completely cremated and neither Roman nor Slavic. The graves are probably remains from the Kutrigurs. This Bulgar tribe was led by Kuber... Средновековни градови и тврдини во Македонија. Иван Микулчиќ (Скопје, Македонска цивилизација, 1996) стр. 32–33.
  71. "The" Other Europe in the Middle Ages: Avars, Bulgars, Khazars and Cumans, East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450 – 1450, Florin Curta, Roman Kovalev, BRILL, 2008, ISBN 9004163891, p. 460.
  72. W Pohl. The Avars (History) in Regna and Gentes. The Relationship Between Late Antique and Early Medieval Peoples and Kingdoms in the Transformation of the Roman World. pp. 581, 587
  73. They spread from the original heartland in north-east Bulgaria to the Drina in the west, and to Macedonia in the south-west.; На целиот тој простор, во маса метални производи (делови од воената опрема, облека и накит), меѓу стандардните форми користени од словенското население, одвреме-навреме се појавуваат специфични предмети врзани за бугарско болјарство како носители на новата државна управа. See: Средновековни градови и тврдини во Македонија. Иван Микулчиќ (Скопје, Македонска цивилизација, 1996) стр. 35; 364–365.
  74. Dejan Bulić, The Fortifications of the Late Antiquity and the Early Byzantine Period on the Later Territory of the South-Slavic Principalities, and Their Re-occupation in Tibor Živković et al., The World of the Slavs: Studies of the East, West and South Slavs: Civitas, Oppidas, Villas and Archeological Evidence (7th to 11th Centuries AD) with Srđan Rudić as ed. Istorijski institut, 2013, Belgrade; ISBN 8677431047, pp. 186–187.
  75. Florin Curta. 'The Edinburgh History of the Greeks, C. 500 to 1050: The Early Middle Ages. pp. 259, 281
  76. Studies on the Internal Diaspora of the Byzantine Empire edited by Hélène Ahrweiler, Angeliki E. Laiou, p. 58. Many were apparently based in Bitola, Stumnitsa and Moglena
  77. Cumans and Tatars: Oriental Military in the Pre-Ottoman Balkans, 1185–1365. Istvan Varsary. p. 67
  78. Stoianovich, Traian (September 1994). Balkan Worlds. M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 9780765638519. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  79. Czamanska, Ilona. (2016). Vlachs and Slavs in the Middle Ages and Modern Era. Res Historica. 41. 11. 10.17951/rh.2016.0.11.
  80. Гюзелев, Боян. Албанци в Източните Балкани, София 2004, Редактор: Василка Танкова, ИМИР (Международен центур за изследване на малцинствата и културните взаимодействия), ISBN 9789548872454, стр. 10-22.
  81. Fine 1991, pp. 110–111.
  82. Fine 1991, pp. 113, 196 Two brothers ... Constantine and Methodius were fluent in the dialect of Slavic in the environs of Thessaloniki. They devised an alphabet to convey Slavic phonetics.
  83. Francis Dvornik. The Slavs p. 167
  84. Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State p. 310
  85. Price, Glanville (18 May 2000). Encyclopedia of the Languages of Europe. Wiley. ISBN 978-0-63122039-8.
  86. Parry, Ken (10 May 2010). The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-44433361-9.
  87. Rosenqvist, Jan Olof (2004). Interaction and Isolation in Late Byzantine Culture. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1-85043944-8.
  88. Fine 1991, pp. 127 .
  89. Hupchick, Dennis (2002). The Balkans: From Constantinople to Communism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 44. ISBN 978-1-4039-6417-5. Boris I welcomed the refugees with open arms, offered them his atronage, and helped them establish a missionary operation centered on Ohrid in Bulgar Macedonia, where they trained youths for the clergy and translated the entire Orthodox liturgy into Slavic. The newly trained Slavic-speaking priests then were sent among the state's Slav subjects. As their influence spread and the numbers of converts multiplied, a new sense of community and state was created within the population. Separate ethnic identities slowly merged into a common Bulgarian one, and regional or tribal loyalties perceptibly shifted to the state, personified by its now-Christian ruler. A state of Bulgaria, as opposed to a Bulgar state, was born.
  90. Alexander Schenker. The Dawn of Slavic. pp. 188–190. Schenker argues that Ohrid was 'innovative' and 'native Slavic' whilst Preslav very much relied on Greek modelling.
  91. Per Curta, Preslav was the center from which the scriptorial innovation associated with the introduction of Cyrillic spread to other regions of Bulgaria. Florin Curta (2006) Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500–1250, Cambridge University Press, p. 221, ISBN 9780521894524.
  92. Detrez, Raymond; Segaert, Barbara (2008). Europe and the Historical Legacies in the Balkans. Peter Lang. ISBN 9789052013749. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  93. Balkan cultural commonality and ethnic diversity. Raymond Detrez (Ghent University, Belgium).
  94. История на българите. Късно средновековие и Възраждане, том 2, Георги Бакалов, TRUD Publishers, 2004, ISBN 9545284676, стр. 23. (Bg.)
  95. Center for Documentation and Information on Minorities in Europe, Southeast Europe (CEDIME-SE) – "Macedonians of Bulgaria", p. 14. Archived 23 July 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  96. Poulton, Hugh (2000). Who are the Macedonians?. Hurst. ISBN 9781850655343. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  97. "Средновековни градови и тврдини во Македонија, Иван Микулчиќ, Македонска академија на науките и уметностите – Скопје, 1996, стр. 72". Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  98. Academician Dimitŭr Simeonov Angelov (1978). "Formation of the Bulgarian nation (summary)". Sofia-Press. pp. 413–415. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  99. When Ethnicity Did Not Matter in the Balkans. J V A Fine. pp. 3–5.
  100. Relexification Hypothesis in Rumanian. Paul Wexler. p. 170
  101. Cumans and Tartars: Oriental military in the pre-Ottoman Balkans. Istvan Vasary. p. 18
  102. Byzantium's Balkan Frontier. Paul Stephenson. p. 78–79
  103. The Edinburgh History of the Greeks; 500–1250: The Middle Ages. Florin Curta. 2013. p. 294 (echoing Anthony D Smith and Anthony Kaldellis) "no clear notion exists that the Greek nation survived into Byzantine times...the ethnic identity of those who lived in Greece during the Middle Ages is best described as Roman."
  104. Mats Roslund. Guests in the House: Cultural Transmission Between Slavs and Scandinavians; 2008. p. 79
  105. The A to Z of the Ottoman Empire, Selcuk Aksin Somel, Scarecrow Press, 2010, ISBN 1461731763, p. 168.
  106. Namee, Matthew (15 March 2022). "The Longest Schism in Modern Orthodoxy: Bulgarian Autocephaly & Ethnophyletism". Orthodox History. The Orthodox Church in the Modern World.
  107. Tashev, Spas. "Facsimilise of Sultan's Firman with English Translation".
  108. Църква и църковен живот в Македония, Петър Петров, Христо Темелски, Македонски Научен Институт, София, 2003 г.
  109. The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian Liberation Movements, 1893–1903, Duncan M. Perry, Duke University Press, 1988, ISBN 0822308134, p. 15.
  110. The A to Z of Bulgaria, Raymond Detrez, Scarecrow Press, 2010, ISBN 0810872021, p. 271.
  111. Vermeulen, Hans (1984). "Greek cultural dominance among the Orthodox population of Macedonia during the last period of Ottoman rule". In Blok, Anton; Driessen, Henk (eds.). Cultural Dominance in the Mediterranean Area. Nijmegen. pp. 225–255.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  112. Gounaris, Basil G. (1995). "Social Cleavages and National "Awakening" in Ottoman Macedonia". East European Quarterly. 29 (4): 409–426.
  113. Gounaris, Basil G. (1995). "Social Cleavages and National "Awakening" in Ottoman Macedonia". East European Quarterly. 29 (4): 409–426.
  114. Roumen Daskalov, Alexander Vezenkov as ed., Entangled Histories of the Balkans – Volume Three: Shared Pasts, Disputed Legacies; Balkan Studies Library, BRILL, 2015; ISBN 9004290362, p. 454.
  115. Loring M. Danforth, The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World, 1995, Princeton University Press, p. 56, ISBN 0-691-04356-6
  116. ^ Roumen Daskalov, Tchavdar Marinov, Entangled Histories of the Balkans, Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies, BRILL, 2013, ISBN 900425076X, pp. 283–285.
  117. The Macedonian Question an article from 1871 by Slaveykov published in the newspaper Macedonia in Carigrad he wrote: "We have many times heard from the Macedonists that they are not Bulgarians, but they are rather Macedonians, descendants of the Ancient Macedonians and we have always waited to hear some proofs of this, but we have never heard them."
  118. Соня Баева, Петко Славейков: живот и творчество, 1827–1870, Изд-во на Българската академия на науките, 1968, стр. 10.
  119. Речник на българската литература, том 2 Е-О. София, Издателство на Българската академия на науките, 1977. с. 324.
  120. A letter from Slaveykov to the Bulgarian Exarch written in Solun in February 1874
  121. Балканска питања и мање историјско-политичке белешке о Балканском полуострву 1886–1905. Стојан Новаковић, Београд, 1906.
  122. "Since the Bulgarian idea, as it is well-known, is deeply rooted in Macedonia, I think it is almost impossible to shake it completely by opposing it merely with the Serbian idea. This idea, we fear, would be incapable, as opposition pure and simple, of suppressing the Bulgarian idea. That is why the Serbian idea will need an ally that could stand in direct opposition to Bulgarianism and would contain in itself the elements which could attract the people and their feelings and thus sever them from Bulgarianism. This ally I see in Macedonism...." except from the report of S. Novakovic to the Minister of Education in Belgrade in Cultural and Public Relations of the Macedonians with Serbia in the XIXth c., Skopje, 1960, p. 178.
  123. ^ Rossos, Andrew (2008). Macedonia and the Macedonians: A History (PDF). Hoover Institution Press. ISBN 978-0817948832. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 January 2019. Retrieved 28 January 2019.
  124. Rečnik od tri jezika: s. makedonski, arbanski i turski , U državnoj štampariji, 1875, p. 48f.
  125. Речник от четири jазика. Ђ. Пулевски, Belgrade, 1873, p. 3
  126. Rečnik od tri jezika: s. makedonski, arbanski i turski , U državnoj štampariji, 1875, p. 48f.
  127. Papers in Slavic Philology. University of Michigan. 1984. p. 102. ISBN 9780930042592. In 1875, Gorge M. Pulevski, who identifies himself as mijak galicki 'a mijak from Galicnik'
  128. Daskalov, Rumen; Marinov, Tchavdar (2013). Entangled Histories of the Balkans: Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies. BRILL. p. 316. ISBN 978-90-04-25076-5.
  129. Chris Kostov (2010). Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900–1996. Peter Lang. p. 67. ISBN 978-3-0343-0196-1.
  130. Блаже Ристовски, "Портрети и процеси од македонската литературна и национална историја", том 1, Скопје: Култура, 1989 г., стр. 281, 283, 28.
  131. Per Srđan Todorov he began his public work as a Mijak and then became an "Old Serbian" patriot, went later to Bulgarian identity, and finally adopted a Macedonian one. For more see: Срђан Тодоров, О народности Ђорђа Пуљевског. В Етно-културолошки зборник, уредник Сретен Петровић, књига XXIII (2020) Сврљиг, УДК 929.511:821.163 (09); ISBN 978-86-84919-42-9, стр. 133-144.
  132. Raymond Detrez (2014). Historical Dictionary of Bulgaria, Rowman & Littlefield, 2014, p. 67. ISBN 1442241802.
  133. Chris Kostov (2010). Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900–1996. Peter Lang. p. 67. ISBN 978-3-0343-0196-1.
  134. Daskalov, Rumen; Marinov, Tchavdar (2013). Entangled Histories of the Balkans: Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies. BRILL. p. 213, ISBN 978-90-04-25076-5
  135. Theodosius of Skopje Centralen D'rzhaven istoricheski archiv (Sofia) 176, op. 1. arh.ed. 595, l.5–42 – Razgledi, X/8 (1968), pp. 996–1000.
  136. Писмо на Теодосий до вестника на Българската екзархия "Новини" от 04.02.1892 г.
  137. Блаже Конески, Македонскиот XIX век. том 6, Составиле: Анастасија Ѓурчинова, Лидија Капушевска-ДракулевскаЫ Бобан Карапејовски, белешки и коментари: Георги Сталев, МАНУ, Скопје, 2020, стр. 72.
  138. Alexis Heraclides (2020). The Macedonian Question and the Macedonians. Taylor & Francis. p. 152. ISBN 9781000289404.
  139. Duncan Perry (1988). The Politics of Terror. Duke University Press. p. 20. ISBN 9780822308133.
  140. Marco Dogo (1985). Lingua e nazionalità in Macedonia. Jaca Book. p. 50. ISBN 9788816950115. In quella data aveva appunto fatto ritorno da una missione in Macedonia il filologo Draganov, di origine bulgaro-bassarabiana, i cui contributi scientifici avrebbero introdotto il pubblico colto della capitale russa all'esistenza di un'area linguistica slava, in quella regione dei Balcani, dotata di caratteri individuanti propri e non assimilabili a quelli serbi e bulgari; ancora in tempi recentissimi Draganov era intervenuto a sostenere, sulle colonne di un autorevole giornale di Petroburgo, il buon diritto degli Slavi macedoni - o meglio Macedoni nel pieno sneso nazionale, e non piu solo geografico, della parola - al riconoscimento da parte russa quale nazionalita a se stante ed anzi maggioritaria in casa propria, in Macedonia.
  141. The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation, Keith Brown, Princeton University Press, 2003, ISBN 0691099952, p. 175
  142. Mercia MacDermott, Freedom or Death, The Life of Gotsé Delchev, Journeyman Press, London & West Nyack, 1978, p. 379.
  143. Alexis Heraclides (2020). The Macedonian Question and the Macedonians. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781000289404.
  144. Information from a book by Gyorche Petrov on the ethnic composition of the population in Macedonia: The Macedonian population consists of Bulgarians, Turks, Albanians, Wallachians, Jews The total number of the population and that of each nationality cannot be defined exactly as there are no statistics... Bulgarians constitute the bulk of the population in the vilayet I am describing. In spite of all distortions in the official statistics, they again figure as more than half of the population. I could not personally collect any data about the number of the population, that is why I am not quoting figures. I made a description of the Bulgarian population in the section on Topography, that is why it is not necessary to repeat the same again or go into detail... (G. Petrov, Materials on the Study of Macedonia), Sofia, 1896, pp. 724-725, 731; the original is in Bulgarian. Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of History, Bulgarian Language Institute, Macedonia. Documents and materials, Sofia 1978, Document # 40.]
  145. The term 'project' tackles likewise the specific temporal orientation of the initial stage of formation of Macedonian ethnic nationalism: the Macedonian self-determination is seen by Misirkov as a future ideal and his national manifesto on the Macedonian Matters (Sofia, 1903) recognizes the lack of actual correlation between the concept of Macedonian Slavic ethnicity and the real self-identifications of the majority of Macedonian Slavs. In a rather demiurgical way, Misirkov is the first who exposes the basic 'ethnographic' characteristics of what he regards as 'inexistent' but 'possible' and 'necessary' Macedonian Slavic ethnicity... Tchavdar Marinov, "Between Political Autonomism and Ethnic Nationalism: Competing Constructions of Modern Macedonian National Ideology (1878–1913)", p. 3.
  146. Misirkov lamented that "no local Macedonian patriotism" existed and would have to be created. He anticipated that Macedonians would respond to his proposal with a series of baffled questions: "What sort of new Macedonian nation can this be when we, and our fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers have always been called Bulgarians?...Macedonian as a nationality has never existed, and it does not exist now"... Misirkov answered by observing that national loyalties change with time: "What has not existed in the past may still be brought into existence later, provided that the appropriate historical circumstances arise... Misirkov in short wanted, the Ottoman state to promote Macedonian nation-building, calling for "official recognition". Region, Regional Identity and Regionalism in Southeastern Europe, Klaus Roth, Ulf Brunnbauer, LIT Verlag Münster, 2008, ISBN 3825813878, p. 138.
  147. Misirkov, Krste (1903). За македонцките работи [On Macedonian Matters] (PDF). Sofia. p. 117. Словените од Бугариiа и Македониiа наi напред беа само соiузници на бугарите во воiните со Византиiа. Но соiузните со бугарите словенцки полчишча беа во очите на неприiателите т.е. византиiците пак бугарцки. Значит византиiците зафатиiа да прекрстуват словените ушче од времето на Аспарухоата орда. Постоiанната борба рамо за рамо со бугарите ѝ направи ниф iеден народ со бугарцко име, но со словенцки iазик [At first, the Slavs in Bulgaria and Macedonia were only allies of the Bulgars in the wars against Byzantium. Hоwever, due to the alliance with the Bulgars, the Slavic hordes appeared in the eyes of the adversary, i.e. the Byzantines, to be Bulgars too. So the Byzantines renamed the Slavs as early as the time of Asparuh's horde. Our constant fight side by side with the Bulgars made us into one people with a Bulgarian name but Slavonic language.]{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  148. Misirkov, Krste (1903). За македонцките работи [On Macedonian Matters] (PDF). Sofia. p. 35.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  149. Misirkov, Krste (1903). "За македонцките работи" [On Macedonian Matters]. Sofia. Archived from the original on 29 August 2008. The uprising prevented Macedonia from being partitioned, and this is one of its more worthwhile results. But partition was luckily avoided thanks really to the fact that our enemies happened to be inept and inexperienced. If Bulgaria wanted to threaten us even more seriously in the future, when our enemies were more experienced, she might enter into an agreement with Serbia concerning the partition of Macedonia between the spheres of influence. This agreement between the spheres of influence would unfailingly lead to the partition of Macedonia. This is why one of the prime duties of the Macedonian intelligentsia is once and for all to drive Serbian and Bulgarian propaganda out of Macedonia so that Macedonia can establish its own spiritual centre, and free the Macedonians from this give and take relation with the neighboring Balkan states and peoples. Hence the need to forestall the partition of Macedonia and retain it as a province of Turkey
  150. Misirkov, Krste (1903). За македонцките работи [On Macedonian Matters] (PDF). Sofia. p. 105.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  151. Misirkov, Krste (1903). "За македонцките работи" [On Macedonian Matters]. Sofia. Archived from the original on 29 August 2008. The Macedonians and Bulgarians are now left with a choice between two possibilities: either Macedonia will be divided among the neighbouring Balkan states, which would mean a loss of two thirds of Macedonia both for the Bulgarians and for the Macedonians, or else all relations with Bulgaria will be severed and the Macedonian question will be regarded on a purely neutral, Macedonian basis. When necessity phrases the issue thus it is clear that the second choice is the one which will always be preferred by everybody, for what honest Macedonian patriot would be prepared to sacrifice Kostur, Lerin, Bitola, Ohrid, Resen, Prilep, Veles, Tetovo, Skopje, etc. for the unification of Macedonia up to the left bank of the River Vardar with Bulgaria?
  152. Victor Roudometof (2002). Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict: Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 112. ISBN 978-0-275-97648-4.
  153. "Проф. д-р Веселин Трайков – "Кръсте П. Мисирков и за българските работи в Македония", София, 2000, Издателство "Знание"". Archived from the original on 18 July 2012. Retrieved 20 February 2013.
  154. Misirkov, Krastyo (1910). "Бележки по южно-славянската филология и история" [Notes on South Slavic Philology and History] (PDF). Българска сбирка (in Bulgarian). 1 (XVII ed.). Sofia: 39–47.
  155. Iz istorii makedonskogo literaturnogo iazyka, R.P. Usikova, 2004
  156. Demeter & Bottlik 2021, p. 114.
  157. Demeter & Bottlik 2021, p. 199.
  158. Demeter & Bottlik 2021, p. 95.
  159. Demeter & Bottlik 2021, p. 96, 93.
  160. Demeter & Bottlik 2021, p. 96, 105.
  161. Demeter & Bottlik 2021, p. 114.
  162. Wilkinson 1951, p. 133-4.
  163. Wilkinson 1951, p. 134-5.
  164. Wilkinson 1951, p. 146-88.
  165. Wilkinson 1951, p. 148-50.
  166. Wilkinson 1951, p. 151.
  167. Wilkinson 1951, p. 152-3.
  168. Demeter & Bottlik 2021, p. 118.
  169. Wilkinson 1951, p. 135, 164.
  170. Wilkinson 1951, p. 164-5.
  171. Demeter & Bottlik 2021, p. 118.
  172. Demeter & Bottlik 2021, p. 121.
  173. Wilkinson 1951, p. 166.
  174. Demeter & Bottlik 2021, p. 119.
  175. Wilkinson 1951, p. 172, 175, 177.
  176. Wilkinson 1951, p. 177-8.
  177. Wilkinson 1951, p. 178-9.
  178. Wilkinson 1951, p. 203.
  179. Wilkinson (1951), pp. 215, 221, 223.
  180. Wilkinson 1951, p. 181-2.
  181. Demeter & Bottlik 2021, p. 129-30.
  182. Wilkinson 1951, p. 192-3.
  183. Demeter & Bottlik 2021, p. 122.
  184. Wilkinson 1951, p. 172.
  185. Wilkinson 1951, p. 203.
  186. Demeter & Bottlik 2021, p. 130.
  187. Историја на македонската нација. Блаже Ристовски, 1999, Скопје.
  188. "On the Monastir Road". Herbert Corey, National Geographic, May 1917 (p. 388.)
  189. When narrating, in his autobiographical anti-war novel Life in Tomb, his convalescence in the house of a family of farmers in Velušina, a Slav-speaking patriarchist village near Bitola/Monastir, during his participation in the Macedonian front of World War I, Greek novelist Stratis Myrivilis wrote of its inhabitants that they "do not want to be 'Bulgar', neither 'Srrp', nor 'Grrc'. Only 'Makedon Ortodox'". See: Μυριβήλης, Στράτης (25 September 1923). Ἡ Ζωὴ ἐν τάφῳ. Κεφάλαιο ιζ΄ (PDF). Καμπάνα. Retrieved 11 July 2022.Μανδαμαδιώτου, Μαρία. Στράτης Μυριβήλης: Από το Βλάντοβο στη Βελουσίνα, 1924-1955. Λεσβιακό Ημερολόγιο 2019, Σελ. 93-104. Tasos Kostopoulos (2009). "Naming the Other: From "Greek Bulgarians" to "Local Macedonians"". In Alexandra Ioannidou; Christian Voß (eds.). Spotlights on Russian and Balkan Slavic Cultural History. Munich/Berlin: Verlag Otto Sagner. p. 108. Mackridge, Peter (2009). Language and National Identity in Greece, 1776-1796. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 303. ISBN 978-0-19-921442-6. On Velusina's population, see also: Brancoff, D.M. (1905). La Macédoine et sa Population Chrétienne. Παρίσι. pp. 168–169.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  190. Boškovska, Nada (2017). Yugoslavia and Macedonia Before Tito: Between Repression and Integration. London / New York: I. B. Tauris. pp. 5–10.
  191. Mavrogordatos, George. Stillborn Republic: Social Coalitions and Party Strategies in Greece, 1922–1936. University of California Press, 1983. ISBN 9780520043589, p. 227, 247
  192. <Michailidis, Iakovos D. (1996). "Minority Rights and Educational Problems in Greek Interwar Macedonia: The Case of the Primer "Abecedar"". Journal of Modern Greek Studies. 14 (2): 329–343.
  193. Victor Roudometof, Nationalism, Globalization, and Orthodoxy: The Social Origins of Ethnic Conflict in the Balkans (Contributions to the Study of World History), Praeger, 2001, p.187
  194. The Situation in Macedonia and the Tasks of IMRO (United) – published in the official newspaper of IMRO (United), "Македонско дело", N.185, April 1934.
  195. Произходът на македонската нация - Стенограма от заседание на Македонския Научен Институт в София през 1947 г.
  196. ...Да, тоа е точно. И не само Димитар Влахов. Павел Шатев, Панко Брашнаров, Ризо Ризов и др. Меѓутоа, овде тезата е погрешно поставена. Не е работата во тоа дали левицата се определуваше за Србија, а десницата за Бугарија. Тука се мешаат поимите. Практично, ни левицата ни десницата не ја доведуваа во прашање својата бугарска провениенција. Тоа ќе го доведе дури и Димитар Влахов во 1948 година на седница на Политбирото, кога говореше за постоењето на македонска нација, да рече дека во 1931-1932 година е направена грешка. Сите тие ветерани останаа само на нивото на политички, а не и на национален сепаратизам... Акад. Иван Катарџиев. "Верувам во националниот имунитет на македонецот". мега-интервју за списание "Форум", архива број 329, Скопје, 22.07.2000.
  197. Κωστόπουλος, Τάσος (2009). ""Η Μακεδονία κάτω από το ζυγό της ελληνικής κεφαλαιοκρατίας". Ένα ρεπορτάζ του Ριζοσπάστη στις σλαβόφωνες περιοχές (1933)". Αρχειοτάξιο (in Greek). 11: 12–13.
  198. Резолюция о македонской нации (принятой Балканском секретариате Коминтерна — Февраль 1934 г, Москва.
  199. Nation, R.C. (1996). A Balkan Union? Southeastern Europe in Soviet Security Policy, 1944–8. In: Gori, F., Pons, S. (eds) The Soviet Union and Europe in the Cold War, 1943–53. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 125–143.
  200. Marinov, Tchavdar & Vezenkov, Alexander. (2014). 6. Communism and Nationalism in the Balkans: Marriage of Convenience or Mutual Attraction?. in R. Daskalov, D. Mishkova, Tch. Marinov, A. Vezenkov, Entangled Histories of the Balkans. Vol. 4: Concepts, Approaches, and (Self-)Representations (Brill, 2017), pp. 440-593.
  201. ... Поделбата на Македонија 1913 година одигра извонредно штетна улога во свеста на Македонецот. Зошто? Затоа што ја прекина нормалната комуникација-политичка, културна, економска - меѓу Македонците. Го прекина процесот на создавање на единствена македонска историја на целиот македонски простор. Македонските прогресивни сили ги врза за прогресивните сили на земјите во коишто опстојуваа. Тие почнаа да ја прифаќаат политичката определба и филозофија на земјите меѓу кои Македонија беше поделена. Така, во текот на НОБ, кога дојде времето за поврзување, постоеше огромен јаз во свеста на Македонецот од трите дела на земјата. Сите велеа дека се Македонци, ама сите на тој поим му даваа поинаква содржина. Кои доаѓаа од Бугарија, тие сметаа дека треба да дојдат на чело и да ја водат Македонија, особено ветераните како Шатев и Влахов. Тие, практично, се чувствуваа како Бугари. ВМРО (Об.) не мрдна од обичниот политички македонски сепаратизам. Во Вардарска Македонија, пак, благодарејќи на српското ропство, тече процес на самоизразување низ литературата. Треба да се признае фактот дека постоењето на хрватско и на словенечко движење во Кралска Југославија придонесе македонското национално движење да се осознава многу подлабоко. Оттаму, појавувањето на весници како Луч во 1937 година, во кои доаѓа до израз теоријата за македонската национална самобитност... Акад. Иван Катарџиев. "Верувам во националниот имунитет на македонецот". мега-интервју за списание "Форум", архива број 329, Скопје, 22.07.2000 г.
  202. History of the Balkans, Vol. 2: Twentieth Century. Barbara Jelavich, 1983.
  203. "Within Greece, and also within the new kingdom of Yugoslavia, which Serbia had joined in 1918, the ejection of the Bulgarian church, the closure of Bulgarian schools, and the banning of publication in Bulgarian, together with the expulsion or flight to Bulgaria of a large proportion of the Macedonian Slav intelligentsia, served as the prelude to campaigns of forcible cultural and linguistic assimilation...In both countries, these policies of de-bulgarization and assimilation were pursued, with fluctuating degrees of vigor, right through to 1941, when the Second World War engulfed the Balkan peninsula. The degree of these policies' success, however, remains open to question. The available evidence suggests that Bulgarian national sentiment among the Macedonian Slavs of Yugoslavia and Greece remained strong throughout the interwar period, though they lacked the means to offer more than passive resistance to official policies." For more see: F. A. K. Yasamee, Nationality in the Balkans: The case of the Macedonians. Balkans: A Mirror of the New World Order, Istanbul: Eren Publishing, 1995; pp. 121–132.
  204. "As in Kosovo, the restoration of Serbian rule in 1918, to which the Strumica district and several other Bulgarian frontier salients accrued in 1919 (Bulgaria also having lost all its Aegean coastline to Greece), marked the replay of the first Serbian occupation (1913–1915). Once again, the Exarchist clergy and Bulgarian teachers were expelled, all Bulgarian-language signs and books removed, and all Bulgarian clubs, societies, and organizations dissolved, The Serbianization of family surnames proceeded as before the war, with Stankov becoming Stankovic and Atanasov entered in the books by Atanackovic... Thousands of Macedonians left for Bulgaria. Though there were fewer killings of "Bulgarians" (a pro-Bulgarian source claimed 342 such instances and 47 additional disappearances in 1918 – 1924), the conventional forms of repression (jailings, internments etc.) were applied more systematically and with greater effect than before (the same source lists 2,900 political arrests in the same period)... Like Kosovo, Macedonia was slated for Serb settlements and internal colonization. The authorities projected the settlement of 50,000 families in Macedonia, though only 4,200 families had been placed in 280 colonies by 1940." For more see: Ivo Banac, "The National Question in Yugoslavia. Origins, History, Politics" The Macedoine, Cornell University Press, 1984; ISBN 0801416752, pp. 307–328.
  205. Yugoslav Communists recognized the existence of a Macedonian nationality during WWII to quiet fears of the Macedonian population that a communist Yugoslavia would continue to follow the former Yugoslav policy of forced Serbianization. Hence, for them to recognize the inhabitants of Macedonia as Bulgarians would be tantamount to admitting that they should be part of the Bulgarian state. For that the Yugoslav Communists were most anxious to mold Macedonian history to fit their conception of Macedonian consciousness. The treatment of Macedonian history in Communist Yugoslavia had the same primary goal as the creation of the Macedonian language: to de-Bulgarize the Macedonian Slavs, and to create a national consciousness that would inspire identification with Yugoslavia. For more see: Stephen E. Palmer, Robert R. King, Yugoslav communism and the Macedonian question, Archon Books, 1971, ISBN 0208008217, Chapter 9: The encouragement of Macedonian culture.
  206. The Serbianization of the Vardar region ended and Yugoslavization was not introduced either; rather, a policy of cultural, linguistic, and "historical" Macedonization by de-Bulgarianization was implemented, with immediate success. For more see: Irina Livezeanu and Arpad von KlimoThe Routledge as ed. History of East Central Europe since 1700, Routledge, 2017, ISBN 1351863428, p. 490.
  207. In Macedonia, post-WWII generations grew up "overdosed" with strong anti-Bulgarian sentiment, leading to the creation of mainly negative stereotypes for Bulgaria and its nation. The anti-Bulgariansim (or Bulgarophobia) increased almost to the level of state ideology during the ideological monopoly of the League of Communists of Macedonia, and still continues to do so today, although with less ferocity... However, it is more important to say openly that a great deal of these anti-Bulgarian sentiments result from the need to distinguish between the Bulgarian and the Macedonian nations. Macedonia could confirm itself as a state with its own past, present and future only through differentiating itself from Bulgaria. For more see: Mirjana Maleska. With the eyes of the "other" (about Macedonian-Bulgarian relations and the Macedonian national identity). In New Balkan Politics, Issue 6, pp. 9–11. Peace and Democracy Center: "Ian Collins", Skopje, Macedonia, 2003. ISSN 1409-9454.
  208. After WWII in Macedonia the past was systematically falsified to conceal the fact that many prominent 'Macedonians' had supposed themselves to be Bulgarians, and generations of students were taught the pseudo-history of the Macedonian nation. The mass media and education were the key to this process of national acculturation, speaking to people in a language that they came to regard as their Macedonian mother tongue, even if it was perfectly understood in Sofia. For more see: Michael L. Benson, Yugoslavia: A Concise History, Edition 2, Springer, 2003, ISBN 1403997209, p. 89.
  209. Once specifically Macedonian interests came to the fore under the Yugoslav communist umbrella and in direct confrontation with the Bulgarian occupation authorities (during WWII), the Bulgarian part of the identity of Vardar Macedonians was destined to die out – in a process similar to the triumph of Austrian over German-Austrian identity in post-war years. Drezov K. (1999) Macedonian identity: an overview of the major claims. In: Pettifer J. (eds) The New Macedonian Question. St Antony's Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London; ISBN 978-0-333-92066-4, p. 51.
  210. Additionally, some 100,000 people were imprisoned in the post-1944 period for violations of the law for the "protection of Macedonian national honor," and some 1,260 Bulgarian sympathizers were allegedly killed. (Troebst, 1997: 248–50, 255–57; 1994: 116–22; Poulton, 2000: 118–19). For more see: Roudometof, Victor, Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict: Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question, Praeger Publishers, 2002. ISBN 0-275-97648-3, p. 104.
  211. Bulgarian sources assert that thousands lost their lives due to this cause after 1944 , and that more than 100 , 000 people were imprisoned under the law for the protection of Macedonian national honour 'for opposing the new ethnogenesis'. 1,260 leading Bulgarians were allegedly killed in Skopje, Veles, Kumanovo, Prilep, Bitola and Stip... For more see: Hugh Poulton, Who are the Macedonians? C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2000, ISBN 1850655340, p. 118.
  212. John Phillips, Macedonia: Warlords and Rebels in the Balkans. (2004) I.B. Tauris (publisher), ISBN 186064841X, p. 40.
  213. Smith A.D. The Antiquity of Nations. 2004, p. 47
  214. Rae, Heather (2002). State identities and the homogenisation of peoples. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 278. ISBN 0-521-79708-X.
  215. Danforth, L. The Macedonian Conflict. Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World. p. 25
  216. Ancient Macedonia: National Symbols. L Danforth in A Companion to Ancient Macedonia. Wiley –Blackwell 2010. p. 597-8
  217. The Handbook of Political Change in Eastern Europe, Sten Berglund, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013, ISBN 1782545883,p. 622.
  218. Transforming National Holidays: Identity Discourse in the West and South Slavic Countries, 1985–2010, Ljiljana Šarić, Karen Gammelgaard, Kjetil Rå Hauge, John Benjamins Publishing, 2012, ISBN 9027206384, pp. 207–208.
  219. Muhić, Maja; Takovski, Aleksandar (2014). "Redefining National Identity in Macedonia. Analyzing Competing Origins Myths and Interpretations through Hegemonic Representations". Etnološka Tribina. 44 (37): 144. doi:10.15378/1848-9540.2014.
  220. Sinisa Jakov Marusic, More Macedonians Apply for Bulgarian Citizenship. Aug 5, 2014, Balkans Inside.
  221. Предоставяне на българско гражданство, Справка за преиода 22.01.2002–15.01.2012 г. (Bulgarian citizenship Information for the period 22.01.2002–15.01.2012 year); Доклад за дейността на КБГБЧ за 2012–2013 година (Report on the activities of the CBCBA for 2012–2013 year), p. 7 Доклад за дейността на КБГБЧ за периода 23.01.2013 – 22.01.2014 година (Report on the activities of the CBCBA for the period 23.01.2013–22.01.2014 year), p. 6; Годишен доклад за дейността на КБГБЧ за периода 01.01.2014–31.12.2014 година (Annual report on the activities of the CBCBA for the period 01.01.2014–31.12.2014 year), p. 5; Годишен доклад за дейността на КБГБЧ за периода 01.01.2015–31.12.2015 година (Annual report on the activities of the CBCBA for the period 01.01.2015–31.12.2015 year), p. 6; Годишен доклад за дейността на КБГБЧ за периода 01.01.2016–31.12.2016 година (Annual report on the activities of the CBCBA for the period 01.01.2016–31.12.2016 year), p. 6; Доклад за дейността на комисията по българско гражданство за периода 14 януари – 31 декември 2017 г. (Activity Report of the Bulgarian Citizenship Commission for the period 14 January – 31 December 2017); Доклад за дейността на комисията по българско гражданство за периода 01 януари – 31 декември 2018 г. (Activity Report of the Bulgarian Citizenship Commission for the period 01 January – 31 December 2018); Доклад за дейността на комисията по българско гражданство за периода 01 януари – 31 декември 2019 г. (Activity Report of the Bulgarian Citizenship Commission for the period 01 January – 31 December 2019). Доклад за дейността на комисията по българско гражданство за периода 01 януари – 31 декември 2020 г. (Activity Report of the Bulgarian Citizenship Commission for the period 01 January – 31 December 2020).
  222. Bulgaria which has an ethnic citizenship regime and has a liberal dual citizenship regime makes a constitutional distinction between Bulgarians and Bulgarian citizens, whereas the former category reflects an ethnic (blood) belonging and the later the civic (territorial) belonging. In line with this definition, naturalization in Bulgaria is facilitated for those individuals who can prove that they belong to the Bulgarian nation...The birth certificates of parents and grandparents, their mother tongue, membership in Bulgarian institutions as the Bulgarian Church, former Bulgarian citizenship of the parents and so on are relevant criteria for the establishment of the ethnic origin of the applicant. In the case of Macedonian citizens, declaring their national identity as Bulgarian suffices to obtain Bulgarian citizenship, without the requirement for permanent residence in Bulgaria, or the language examination etc. For more see: Jelena Džankić, Citizenship in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Montenegro: Effects of Statehood and Identity Challenges, Southeast European Studies, Ashgate Publishing, 2015, ISBN 1472446410, p. 126.
  223. Raymond Detrez, Historical Dictionary of Bulgaria, Historical Dictionaries of Europe, Rowman & Littlefield, 2014, ISBN 1442241802, p. 318.
  224. Jo Shaw and Igor Štiks as ed., Citizenship after Yugoslavia, Routledge, 2013, ISBN 1317967070, p. 106.
  225. Rainer Bauböck, Debating Transformations of National Citizenship, IMISCOE Research Series, Springer, 2018, ISBN 3319927191, pp. 47–48.
  226. Michael Palairet, Macedonia: A Voyage through History (Vol. 2, From the Fifteenth Century to the Present), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016, ISBN 1443888494, p. 347.
  227. Mina Hristova, In-between Spaces: Dual Citizenship and Placebo Identity at the Triple Border between Serbia, Macedonia and Bulgaria in New Diversities; Volume 21, No. 1, 2019, pp. 37–55.
  228. Risteski, L. (2016). "Bulgarian passports" – Possibilities for greater mobility of Macedonians and/or strategies for identity manipulation? EthnoAnthropoZoom/ЕтноАнтропоЗум, (10), 80–107. https://doi.org/10.37620/EAZ14100081r
  229. Ljubica Spaskovska, Country report on Macedonia, November 2012. EUDO Citizenship Observatory, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, p.20.
  230. Bulgaria asks EU to stop 'fake' Macedonian identity. Deutsche Welle, 23.09.2020.
  231. Bulgaria blocks EU accession talks with North Macedonia. Nov 17, 2020, National post.
  232. "Address by the Director of the State Statistical Office on the completion of the Census 2021".
  233. Лилия Чалева, Скопие преброи 19 645 души с двойно гражданство 29 април 2022, Dir.bg.
  234. μακεδνός, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
  235. μακρός, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
  236. Macedonia, Online Etymology Dictionary
  237. Eugene N. Borza, Makedonika, Regina Books, ISBN 0-941690-65-2, p.114: The "highlanders" or "Makedones" of the mountainous regions of western Macedonia are derived from northwest Greek stock; they were akin both to those who at an earlier time may have migrated south to become the historical "Dorians".
  238. Nigel Guy Wilson, Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece, Routledge, 2009, p.439: The latest archaeological findings have confirmed that Macedonia took its name from a tribe of tall, Greek-speaking people, the Makednoi.
  239. Drezov K. (1999) Macedonian identity: an overview of the major claims. In: Pettifer J. (eds) The New Macedonian Question. St Antony's Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London, ISBN 0230535798, pp. 50–51.
  240. Jelavich Barbara, History of the Balkans, Vol. 2: Twentieth Century, 1983, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521274591, page 91.
  241. John S. Koliopoulos, Thanos M. Veremis, Modern Greece: A History since 1821. A New History of Modern Europe, John Wiley & Sons, 2009, ISBN 1444314831, p. 48.
  242. Richard Clogg, Minorities in Greece: Aspects of a Plural Society. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2002, ISBN 1850657068, p. 160.
  243. Dimitar Bechev, Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia, Scarecrow Press, 2009, ISBN 0810862956, Introduction, pp. VII-VIII.
  244. J. Pettifer, The New Macedonian Question, St Antony's group, Springer, 1999, ISBN 0230535798, pp. 49–51.
  245. Anastas Vangeli, Nation-building ancient Macedonian style: the origins and the effects of the so-called antiquization in Macedonia. Nationalities Papers, the Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity, Volume 39, 2011 pp. 13–32.
  246. As the Macedonian historian Taskovski claims, the Macedonian Slavs initially rejected the Macedonian designation as Greek. For more see: Tchavdar Marinov, Famous Macedonia, the Land of Alexander: Macedonian identity at the crossroads of Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian nationalism, p. 285; in Entangled Histories of the Balkans – Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies with Roumen Daskalov and Tchavdar Marinov as ed., BRILL, 2013, ISBN 900425076X, pp. 273–330.
  247. Chris Kostov, Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900–1996, Peter Lang, 2010, ISBN 3034301960, p. 65.
  248. In a letter to Prof. Marin Drinov of May 25, 1888 Kuzman Shapkarev writes: "But even stranger is the name Macedonians, which was imposed on us only 10–15 years ago by outsiders, and not as some think by our own intellectuals.... Yet the people in Macedonia know nothing of that ancient name, reintroduced today with a cunning aim on the one hand and a stupid one on the other. They know the older word: "Bugari", although mispronounced: they have even adopted it as peculiarly theirs, inapplicable to other Bulgarians. You can find more about this in the introduction to the booklets I am sending you. They call their own Macedono-Bulgarian dialect the "Bugarski language", while the rest of the Bulgarian dialects they refer to as the "Shopski language". (Makedonski pregled, IX, 2, 1934, p. 55; the original letter is kept in the Marin Drinov Museum in Sofia, and it is available for examination and study)
  249. E. Damianopoulos, The Macedonians: Their Past and Present, Springer, 2012, ISBN 1137011904, p. 185.
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Bibliography

  • Demeter, Gábor; Bottlik, Zsolt (2021). Maps in the Service of the Nation: The Role of Ethnic Mapping in Nation-Building and Its Influence on Political Decision-Making Across the Balkan Peninsula (1840–1914). Berlin: Frank & Timme.
  • Levinson, David; O'Leary, Timothy (1992). Encyclopedia of World Cultures. G.K. Hall. ISBN 0-8161-1808-6.
  • Wilkinson, Henry Robert (1951). Maps and politics: a review of the ethnographic cartography of Macedonia. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.

Further reading

External links

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