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For an in depth analysis of the often confusing terms regarding Macedonia, see Macedonia (terminology).

The naming dispute between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia over the name of the latter, its main ethnic group, and their language has escalated to the highest point of international mediation, involving attempts to a resolution notably through the United Nations.

The provisional reference "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" (FYROM) is currently always used in relations when states not recognizing the constitutional name are parties, although all UN member-states, and the UN as a whole, have agreed to accept any final agreement resulting from negotiations between the two countries.

The ongoing dispute is still pending full resolution and has created a great amount of political and academic argument for both sides.

Background

Controversy and conflict

The borders of the present-day Republic of Macedonia were drawn in 1946 when the People's Republic of Macedonia was established as part of the newly proclaimed federal Yugoslav state. The issue of the republic's name immediately sparked controversy with Greece over concerns that it presaged a territorial claim on the Greek coastal region of Macedonia (see Territorial concerns below). The republic was later renamed the Socialist Republic of Macedonia but dropped the "Socialist" from its name when it declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in September 1991.

However, the newly independent republic's accession to the United Nations and recognition by the European Community was delayed by strong Greek opposition. Although the Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on the former Yugoslavia declared that the Republic of Macedonia met the conditions set by the EC for international recognition, Greece opposed the international community recognising the Republic due to a number of objections concerning the country's name, flag and constitution. In an effort to block the European Community from recognising the Republic, the Greek government persuaded the EC to adopt a common declaration establishing conditions for recognition which included a ban on "territorial claims towards a neighbouring Community state, hostile propaganda and the use of a denomination that implies territorial claims."

Greece's major political parties agreed on 13 April 1992 that the word "Macedonia" could not be included in any way in the new republic's name. This became the cornerstone of the Greek position on the issue. The Greek diaspora was also mobilised in the naming controversy. A Greek-American group, Americans for the Just Resolution of the Macedonian Issue, placed a full-page advertisement in the April 26 and May 10, 1992 editions of the New York Times, urging President George H. W. Bush "not to discount the concerns of the Greek people" by recognising the "Republic of Skopje" as Macedonia. Greek Canadians also mounted a similar campaign. The EC subsequently issued a declaration expressing a willingness "to recognise that republic within its existing borders ... under a name which does not include the term Macedonia."

Greek objections likewise held up the wider international recognition of the Republic of Macedonia. Although the Republic applied for membership of the United Nations on 30 July 1992, its application languished in a diplomatic limbo for nearly a year. A few states — Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Lithuania, Slovenia and Turkey — recognised the republic under its constitutional name prior to its admission to the UN. Most, however, waited to see what the United Nations would do. The delay had a serious effect on the Republic, as it led to a worsening of its already precarious economic and political conditions. With war raging in nearby Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, the need to ensure the country's stability became an urgent priority for the international community. The deteriorating security situation led to the UN's first-ever preventative peacekeeping deployment in December 1992, when units of the United Nations Protection Force were deployed to monitor possible border violations from Serbia.

Compromise solutions

During 1992, the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia all adopted the appellation "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" to refer to the Republic in their discussions and dealings with it. The same terminology was proposed in January 1993 by France, Spain and the United Kingdom, the three EC members of the United Nations Security Council, to enable the Republic to join the United Nations. The proposal was circulated on 22 January 1993 by the United Nations Secretary General. However, it was initially rejected by both sides in the dispute. It was immediately opposed by the Greek Foreign Minister, Michael Papacostaninou. In a letter to the Secretary General dated 25 January 1993, he argued that admitting the republic "prior to meeting the necessary prerequisites, and in particular abandoning the use of the denomination 'Republic of Macedonia', would perpetuate and increase friction and tension and would not be conducive to peace and stability in an already troubled region."

The Macedonian president, Kiro Gligorov, also opposed the proposed formula. In a letter of 24 March 1993, he informed the President of the United Nations Security Council that "the Republic of Macedonia will in no circumstances be prepared to accept 'the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia' as the name of the country." He declared that "we refuse to be associated in any way with the present connotation of the term 'Yugoslavia'". The issue of possible Serbian territorial ambitions had been a long-running concern in Macedonia, which some Serbian nationalists still called "South Serbia" after its pre-World War II name. The Macedonian government was consequently nervous of any naming formula which might be seen to endorse a possible Serbian territorial claim.

Both sides came under intense diplomatic pressure to compromise. The support that Greece had received initially from its allies and partners in NATO and the European Community had begun to wane due to a combination of factors that included irritation in some quarters at Greece's hard line on the issue and a belief that Greece had flouted sanctions against Slobodan Milošević's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The intra-Community tensions were publicly exposed on 20 January 1993 by the Danish foreign minister, Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, who attracted the ire of Greek members of the European Parliament when he described the Greek position as "ridiculous" and expressed the hope that "the Security Council will very quickly recognise Macedonia and that many of the member states of the Community will support this."

The Greek Prime Minister, Constantine Mitsotakis, took a much more moderate line on the issue than many of his colleagues in the governing New Democracy party. Despite opposition from hardliners, he endorsed the proposal in March 1993. The Greek government's acceptance of the formula led to the Macedonian government also reluctantly accepting it, though it too was divided between moderates and hardliners on the issue.

On 7 April 1993, the UN Security Council endorsed the admission of the republic in UN Security Council Resolution 817. It recommended to the United Nations General Assembly "that the State whose application is contained in document S/25147 be admitted to membership in the United Nations, this State being provisionally referred to for all purposes within the United Nations as "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" pending settlement of the difference that has arisen over the name of the State." The recommendation was agreed by the General Assembly, which passed Resolution 225 the following day, 8 April, using virtually the same language as the Security Council. The Republic of Macedonia thus became the 181st member of the United Nations.

The compromise solution, as set out in the two resolutions, was very carefully worded in an effort to meet the objections and concerns of both sides. The wording of the resolutions rested on four key principles:

• The appellation "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" was purely a provisional term to be used only until the dispute was resolved.

• The term was a reference, not a name; as a neutral party in the dispute, the United Nations had not sought to determine the name of the state. The President of the Security Council subsequently issued a statement declaring on behalf of the Council that the term "merely reflected the historic fact that it had been in the past a republic of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia." The purpose of the term was also emphasized by the fact that the expression begins with the uncapitalised words "the former Yugoslav", acting as a descriptive term, rather than "the Former Yugoslav", which would act as a proper noun. By also being a reference rather than a name, it met Greek concerns that the term "Macedonia" should not be used in the republic's internationally recognised name.

• The use of the term was purely "for all purposes within the United Nations"; it was not being mandated for any other party.

• The term did not imply that the Republic of Macedonia had any connection with the existing Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, as opposed to the historical and now-defunct Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

One additional concern that had to be taken care of was the seating of the Republic of Macedonia in the General Assembly. Greece rejected seating the Republic's representative under M (as in "Macedonia (former Yugoslav Republic of"), and the Republic rejected sitting under F (as in "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", which turned the reference into a proper noun rather than a description). Instead, it was seated under T as "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" and placed next to Thailand.

In due course, the same convention was adopted by many other international organizations and states but they did so independently, not as the result of being instructed by the UN. For its part, Greece did not adopt the UN terminology at this stage and did not recognise the Republic under any name. The rest of the international community did not immediately recognise the Republic, but this did eventually happen at the end of 1993 and start of 1994. China was the first major power to act, recognising the Republic under its constitutional name on 13 October 1993. On 16 December 1993, two weeks before Greece was due to take up the European Community presidency, six key EC countries — Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom — recognised the Republic under its UN designation. Other EC countries followed suit in quick succession and by the end of December, all EC member states except Greece had recognised the Republic. Japan, Russia and the United States followed suit on 21 December 1993, 3 February and 9 February 1994 respectively.

A continuing dispute

Despite the apparent success of the compromise agreement, it led to an upsurge in nationalist agitation in both countries. Anti-Western and anti-American feelings came to the fore in Greece, in response to a perception that Greece's partners in the EC and NATO had betrayed it. The government of Constantine Mitsotakis was highly vulnerable; it had a majority of only a couple of seats and was under considerable pressure from ultra-nationalists. After the Republic of Macedonia's admission to the UN, the hardline former foreign minister Antonis Samaras broke away from the governing New Democracy (ND) party along with three like-minded deputies who resented what they saw as the prime minister's unacceptable weakness on the Macedonian issue. This defection deprived ND of its slim parliamentary majority and ultimately caused the fall of the government, which suffered a landslide defeat in the general election of October 1993. It was replaced by the PASOK party under Andreas Papandreou, who introduced an even more hardline policy on Macedonia and withdrew from the UN-sponsored negotiations on the naming issue in late October.

The Macedonian government also faced domestic opposition for its part in the agreement. Protest rallies against the UN's temporary reference were held in the cities of Skopje, Kočani and Resen. The Macedonian parliament only accepted the agreement by a narrow margin, with 30 deputies voting in favour, 28 voting against and 13 abstaining. The nationalist opposition VMRO party called a vote of no confidence over the naming issue, but the government survived with 62 deputies voting in its favour.

Clashes over the naming dispute were not confined to the Balkans. After Australia recognised the Republic of Macedonia (under its UN appellation) in early 1994, tens of thousands of Greek-Australians took part in protest marches and Macedonian-Australian properties in Melbourne were hit by a series of bomb and arson attacks. Greek churches were attacked in retaliation.

Greece and the Republic of Macedonia eventually formalised bilateral relations in an Interim Accord signed in New York on 13 September 1995. Under the agreement, the Republic removed the Vergina Sun from its flag and allegedly irredentist clauses from its constitution, and both countries committed to continuing negotiations on the naming issue under UN auspices. For its part, Greece agreed that it would not object to any application by the Republic so long as it used only the appellation set out in "paragraph 2 of the United Nations Security Council resolution 817" (i.e. "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia"). This opened the door for the Republic to join a variety of international organisations and initiatives, including the Council of Europe, OSCE and Partnership for Peace.

The accord was not a conventional perpetual treaty, as it can be superseded or revoked, but its provisions are legally binding in terms of international law. Most unusually, it did not use the names of either party. Greece, "the Party of the First Part", recognised the Republic of Macedonia under the term "the Party of the Second Part". The accord did not specifically identify either party by name (thus avoiding the awkwardness of Greece having to use the term "Macedonia" in reference to its northern neighbour). Instead, it identified the two parties elliptically by describing the Party of the First Part as having Athens as its capital and the Party of the Second Part having its capital at Skopje. Subsequent declarations have continued this practice of referring to the parties without naming them.

The current situation

The naming issue has not yet been resolved, but it has effectively reached a stalemate. Various names had been proposed over the years, for instance "New Macedonia", "Upper Macedonia", "Slavo-Macedonia", "Nova Makedonija", "Macedonia (Skopje)" and so on. However, these had invariably fallen foul of the Greek insistence that no permanent formula incorporating the term "Macedonia" is acceptable. Greece had counter-proposed the names "Vardar Republic" or "Republic of Skopje", but the Macedonian government and opposition parties had consistently rejected any solution that eliminates the term "Macedonia" from the country's name. Following these developments, Greece has revised its position and demonstrates its acceptance of a "composite solution" (i.e. the incorporation of the term "Macedonia" in the name, but with the use of a disambiguating qualifier).

For their part, the inhabitants of the Republic of Macedonia are overwhelmingly opposed to changing the country's name. A June 2007 opinion poll found that 77 per cent of the population were against a change in the country's constitutional name, and 72 per cent supported the Republic's accession to NATO only if it was admitted under its constitutional name. Only 8 per cent supported accession under the "FYROM" reference.

An increasing number of states have switched to recognising the Republic of Macedonia by its constitutional name. A few had recognized it by this name from the start, while most others had switched from recognising it under its UN reference. By September 2007, 118 countries (61% of all UN member states) had recognised the Republic of Macedonia under its constitutional name. Some observers have suggested that the gradual erosion of the Greek position means that "the question appears destined to die" in due course.

The compromise reference is always used in relations when states not recognizing the constitutional name are parties. This is due to the fact that the UN refers to the country only as "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", although all UN member-states (and the UN itself) have agreed to accept any final agreement resulting from negotiations between the two countries.

Although the two countries continue to argue over the name, in practice they deal pragmatically with each other. Economic relations and cooperation have resumed to such an extent that Greece is now considered one of the Republic's most important foreign economic partners and investors.

Most Greeks reject any use of the word "Macedonia" to describe the Republic of Macedonia, instead calling it ΠΓΔΜ (Πρώην Γιουγκοσλαβική Δημοκρατία της Μακεδονίας), the Greek version of FYROM, or Skopje and its inhabitants Skopians (Greek: Skopiani), after the country's capital. This metonymic name is not used by non-Greeks, and many inhabitants of the Republic regard it as insulting. However, Greek official sources sometimes use the term "Slavomacedonian" to refer to the Republic's inhabitants; the US State Department has used the term side by side with "Macedonian", albeit having them both in quotation marks. The name "Macedonian Slavs" (Македонски Словени) is another term used to refer to the ethnic Macedonians by non-Greeks. A number of news agencies have used it (although the BBC recently discontinued its use on the grounds that people had alleged it was offensive), and it is used by the Encarta Encyclopedia. The name has been occasionally used in early ethnic Macedonian literary sources as in Krste Misirkov's work On Macedonian Matters (Za Makedonckite Raboti) in 1903.

The March 2004 application of the Republic of Macedonia for membership of the European Union may help to speed efforts to find a solution; in a meeting of 14 September 2004, the EU noted that the difference over the name of the Republic of Macedonia still persists and encouraged parties to find a mutually acceptable solution, but stated that it is not part of the conditions for EU accession.

In 2005, Matthew Nimetz, UN Special Representative for the country, suggested using "Republika Makedonija-Skopje" for official purposes. Greece did not accept the proposal outright, but characterized it as "a basis for constructive negotiations". Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski rejected the proposal and counterproposed a "double formula" where the international community uses "Republic of Macedonia" and Greece uses "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia".

Nimetz was reported to have made a new proposal in October 2005; that the name "Republika Makedonija" should be used by those countries that have recognized the country under that name and that Greece should use the formula "Republika Makedonija – Skopje", while the international institutions and organizations should use the name "Republika Makedonia" in Latin alphabet transcription. Although the government of the Republic of Macedonia accepted the proposal as a good basis for solving the dispute, Greece rejected the proposal as unacceptable.

In December 2006, the government of the Republic announced the intent to rename Skopje Airport "Petrovec" to "Aleksandar Veliki" (Alexander the Great). Mathew Nimetz was invited to Athens in January 2007, where he commented that the efforts to mediate in the issue over the name were "affected and not in a positive way".

The Republic of Macedonia's aspirations to join the European Union and NATO under its constitutional name have caused controversy in recent years. Under the Interim Accord of September 1995, Greece agreed not to obstruct the Republic's applications for membership in international bodies as long as it did so under its provisional UN appellation. Leading Greek officials have repeatedly stated that Athens would veto the country's accession in the absence of a resolution to the dispute. The Greek foreign minister, Dora Bakoyannis, has stated that "...the Hellenic Parliament, under any composition, will not ratify the accession of the neighbouring country to the EU and NATO if the name issue is not resolved beforehand." However, the Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis has denied ever committing himself unequivocally to exercising Greece's right of veto, stating instead that he would only block the neighbouring country's application for EU and NATO membership if it sought to be admitted as the "Republic of Macedonia". On Friday 19th October 2007 Karamanlis stated that without a mutually acceptable solution to the name issue, FYROM can not join either NATO or the EU. Negotiations between Athens and Skopje were resumed on the 1st of November 2007 and shall be continued on the 1st of Dec of the same year.

Template:MultiCol

List of countries/entities recognizing "Republic of Macedonia" (RoM)

As of September 2007, 118 countries recognise the Republic of Macedonia by its constitutional name.

Four of the five permanent UN Security Council members:

• People's Republic of China
• Russia (G8 member)
• United Kingdom (EU, NATO and G8 member)
• United States of America (NATO and G8 member)

All other former Yugoslav republics:

• Bosnia-Herzegovina
• Croatia
• Montenegro
• Serbia
• Slovenia (EU and NATO member)

Neighbor:

• Bulgaria (EU and NATO member)

In addition, the following countries have also recognized the nation by its constitutional name:

• Canada (NATO and G8 member)
• Hungary (EU and NATO member)
• Moldova
• Poland (EU and NATO member)
• Romania (EU and NATO member)
• Turkey (NATO member)

| class="col-break " |

List of countries/entities recognizing "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" (FYROM)

• Australia
• France (EU, NATO and G8 member)
• Germany (EU, NATO and G8 member)
• Greece (EU and NATO member)
• India
• Italy (EU, NATO and G8 member)
• Spain (EU and NATO member)
• The Holy See

List of countries/entities to be sorted

• Sovereign Military Order of Malta
• Taiwan (1999-2001)

The following states have inconsistent official references to the country, using both names:

• Albania
• Austria (EU member)
• United States (Republican-controlled federal government; the Democratic-controlled Congress uses the designation "Republic of Macedonia (FYROM)")

List of countries/entities that have not yet granted recognition as either RoM, or FYROM

The following countries/entities have no diplomatic relations with the state: Andorra, Bahamas, Barbados, Bhutan, Botswana, Chile, Cyprus, Fiji, Georgia, Grenada, Kiribati, Lebanon, Liberia, Mali, Malta, Monaco, Namibia, Palau, Palestinian Authority, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Philippines, Sahrawi Republic, Saint Kitts and Nevis, San Marino, Solomon Islands, South Africa, South Korea, Suriname, Syria, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Tuvalu, Zimbabwe. Template:EndMultiCol

Greek position

The constitutional name of the country "Republic of Macedonia" and the short name "Macedonia" when referring to the country, can be considered offensive by most Greeks, especially inhabitants of the Greek province of Macedonia. The Greek government officially uses the term Slavomacedonian to describe both the language and a member of the ethnic group, and the United Nations' provisional reference for the country (the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) by the main international organisations, including the United Nations. The official reasons for this, as described by the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, are:

"The choice of the name Macedonia by FYROM directly raises the issue of usurpation of the cultural heritage of a neighbouring country. The name constitutes the basis for staking an exclusive rights claim over the entire geographical area of Macedonia. More specifically, to call only the Slavo-Macedonians Macedonians monopolizes the name for the Slavo-Macedonians and creates semiological confusion, whilst violating the human rights and the right to self-determination of Greek Macedonians. The use of the name by FYROM alone may also create problems in the trade area, and subsequently become a potential springboard for distorting reality, and a basis for activities far removed from the standards set by the European Union and more specifically the clause on good neighbourly relations. The best example of this is to be seen in the content of school textbooks in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia."

The current leader of the major opposition party, PASOK, George Papandreou has stated that "in January 2002, when he was Minister for Foreign Affairs, was next to a deal with Skopje leadership about using the name "Горна Македонија" ("Gorna Makedonija" - "Upper Macedonia" in Slavic). The other parties and the President of the Republic, he said, were informed but the solution process didn't work, because the Tetovo crisis broke out."

The Greek concerns can be analyzed as follows:

Historical concerns

The name is historically associated with Greek culture, notably that of the kingdom of Macedon. Greeks consider that the inhabitants of the neighbouring republic — most of whom are descendants of Slavic tribes who first immigrated into the region around the 6th century CE — have no historical right to claim the use of the name "Macedonia" for themselves. Macedonian nationalists and communist-era Yugoslav propagandists have tried to associate the republic with ancient Macedon, making a number of historically dubious claims. These historic claims are continued in the present-day Republic and in the diaspora, even by official sources, and political actions (see plans to rename the Skopje Airport to "Alexander Makedonski"), and are further reinforced by pseudoscientific theories (see The Arnaiz-Villena controversy).

The territory of the Republic of Macedonia was not called that as a political entity until 1944, when it ceased to be called South Serbia, and Yugoslavia was divided into separate republics. While it is certainly a small part of the historical region of Macedonia, there is no continuity, political, historical, ethnic, linguistic or otherwise, between ancient Macedon and the modern Republic of Macedonia.

Loring M. Danforth, a professor of anthropology working at Bates College in the United States who has written many award winning books and articles on Republic of Macedonia, Greece, Australia and nationalism, reports:

Extreme Macedonian nationalists, who are concerned with demonstrating the continuity between ancient and modern Macedonians, deny that they are Slavs and claim to be the direct descendants of Alexander the Great and the ancient Macedonians. The more moderate Macedonian position, generally adopted by better educated Macedonians and publicly endorsed by Kiro Gligorov, the first president of the newly independent Republic of Macedonia, is that modern Macedonians have no relation to Alexander the Great, but are a Slavic people whose ancestors arrived in Macedonia in the sixth century AD. Proponents of both the extreme and the moderate Macedonian positions stress that the ancient Macedonians were a distinct non-Greek people.

The Times Guide to the Peoples of Europe affirms that:

Macedonian rock groups may claim Alexander the Great as a forefather of their nation but even the recent scholarly histories of the Macedonians spanning three millennia are spurious and only lay the Macedonians open to the ridicule of those who would deny their nationhood; the Macedonian regional name is ancient but contemporary Macedonians are among the newest nations in Europe.

Territorial concerns

During the Greek Civil War, in 1947 the Greek Ministry of Press and Information published a book, I Enandion tis Ellados Epivoulis ("Designs on Greece"), namely of documents and speeches on the ongoing Macedonian issue, many translations from Yugoslav officials. It reports Josip Broz Tito using the term "Aegean Macedonia" on October 11, 1945 in the build up to the Greek Civil War; the original document is archived in ‘GFM A/24581/G2/1945’. For Athens in 1947, the “new term, Aegean Macedonia”, (also “Pirin Macedonia”), was introduced by Yugoslavs. Contextually, this observation indicates this was part of the Yugoslav offensive against Greece, laying claim to Greek Macedonia, but Athens does not seem to take issue with the term itself. The 1945 date concurs with Bulgarian sources.

Tito's war time representative to Macedonia, General Tempo (Svetozar Vukmanovic), is credited with promoting the usage of the new regional names of the Macedonian region for irredentist purposes.

Greece suspects that the Republic of Macedonia has territorial ambitions in the northern Greek provinces of Macedonia. This has been a Greek concern for decades; as far back as 1957, the Greek government expressed concern about reported Yugoslav ambitions to create an "independent" People's Republic of Macedonia with the Greek city of Thessaloniki as its capital.

The concerns are further reinforced by the fact that extremist ethnic Macedonian nationalists of the "United Macedonia" movement have expressed irredentist claims to what they refer to as "Aegean Macedonia" (in Greece), "Pirin Macedonia" (in Bulgaria), "Mala Prespa and Golo Bardo" (in Albania), and "Gora and Prohor Pchinski" (in Serbia).

Greek Macedonians, Bulgarians, Albanians and Serbs form the overwhelming majority of the population of each part of the region respectively.

Schoolbooks and official government publications in the Republic have shown the country as part of an unliberated whole.

Professor Loring M. Danforth, reports the following:

Although all Macedonians agree that Macedonian minorities exist in Bulgaria and Greece and that these minorities have been subjected to harsh policies of forced assimilation, there are two different positions with regard to what their future should be. The goal of more extreme Macedonian nationalists is to create a "free, united, and independent Macedonia" by "liberating" the parts of Macedonia "temporarily occupied" by Bulgaria and Greece. More moderate Macedonian nationalists recognize the inviolability of the Bulgarian and Greek borders and explicitly renounce any territorial claims against the two countries. They do, however, demand that Bulgaria and Greece recognize the existence of Macedonian minorities in their countries and grant them the basic human rights they deserve.

And...

...Greek fears that use of the name "Macedonia" by Slavs will inevitably lead to the assertion of irredentist claims to territory in Greek Macedonia are heightened by fairly recent historical events. During World War II Bulgaria occupied portions of northern Greece, while one of the specific goals of the founders of the People's Republic of Macedonia in 1944 was "the unification of the entire Macedonian nation," to be achieved by "the liberation of the other two segments" of Macedonia.

Self-Determination

According to both the official Greek position and various public manifestations in Greece and the Greek diaspora, the Greek Macedonians feel that their right to self-determination is violated by what they regard as the monopolisation of their name by a neighbouring country.

The strong regional identity of the Macedonians was emphasized by the Prime Minister of Greece, Kostas Karamanlis, who in January 2007 during a meeting of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg declared that:

I myself am a Macedonian, and another two and a half million Greeks are Macedonians.

In Greece, the extreme position on the issue suggests that there must be "no Macedonia in the title" of a neighbouring country.

Professor Danforth reports:

From the Greek nationalist perspective, then, the use of the name "Macedonian" by the "Slavs of Skopje" constitutes a "felony," an "act of plagiarism" against the Greek people. By calling themselves "Macedonians" the Slavs are "stealing" a Greek name; they are "embezzling" Greek cultural heritage; they are "falsifying" Greek history. As Evangelos Kofos, a historian employed by the Greek Foreign Ministry told a foreign reporter, "It is as if a robber came into my house and stole my most precious jewels - my history, my culture, my identity".

More moderate positions suggest that a disambiguating element should be added to the name of the neighbouring state and its people (notably Slav- or Vardar or New), so as to illustrate the distinction between not just the two, but all groups of self-identifying Macedonians.

Semiological confusion

The contemporary region of Macedonia is a wider region in the Balkan peninsula that spans across several modern states, mainly Greece (Greek Macedonia), Bulgaria (Blagoevgrad province), the Republic of Macedonia (formerly Vardar Macedonia), and Albania (around Lake Ohrid). The definite borders of the region are vague, but most contemporary geographers agree on its general location. There are several ethnic groups in this region, mostly living within their respective states, all of which are technically Macedonians in the regional sense. The Republic itself, has a substantial minority (25.2%) of ethnic Albanians who are "Macedonians" both in the regional sense, and as legal citizens of the Republic.

The Greek position suggests that the monopolization of the name by the Republic and its citizens creates semiological confusion, as it becomes increasingly difficult to disambiguate which "Macedonia", which "Macedonians" and what "Macedonian language" are referred to in each occasion.

Bulgarians living in Blagoevgrad province (Bulgarian Macedonia) are reported to not self-identify with their regional term "Macedonians", so as not to be confused with the ethnic Macedonians.

Macedo-Romanians (Aromanians) are often called "Machedoni" by Romanians, as opposed to the citizens of Macedonia, who are called "Macedoneni".

The Greek Macedonians demonstrate a strong regional identity and self-identify as plain Macedonians, who live in plain Macedonia, speaking a Macedonian dialect of modern Greek.

The Macedonian (Greek) minority in the FYROM

There is a Macedonian (Greek) minority in what is now the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, a remnant of the formerly much larger indigenous Greek community of the wider region of Macedonia that fell within the borders of Serbia after the Balkan Wars of 1912-13. The official 2002 census figures cite a few hundred ethnic Greeks in the country, but it is unknown how many of these consider themselves to be of indigenous Macedonian origin. In addition, Greek sources suggest that the Vlach minority in the country which numbered 250,000 in 1994 are of Greek origin. According to Victor Roudometof, the majority of the Vlachs in the region have historically self-identified as Greeks.

Ethnic Macedonian position

Self-determination and self-identification

Skopje rejects many of Athens's objections due to what it sees as several errors in the Greek claims.

According to the government in Skopje, the preservation of the constitutional name both for domestic and international use is of utmost importance. The country asserts that it does not lay exclusive claim to the term Macedonia either in the geographic or the historic sense. Various demonstrations and protests in the Republic of Macedonia and the ethnic Macedonian diaspora, the ethnic Macedonians feel that their right to self-determination is violated by what they regard as the rejection of the name from the Greeks and their country. The Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences suggests:

And today Slavs have been living there (Macedonia) for a period of 1,400 years. What is more natural than that the Balkanized Slavs who have lived so long and continuously in Macedonia should be called Macedonians and their language Macedonian"

It should be noted, however, that the Slavs inhabited Macedonia for more than a millennium before the name "Macedonians" was first used to distinguish a specific Slavic ethnic group in the first half of the twentieth century.

They also dismiss the idea that they are depriving Greek Macedonians of an identity and falsifying history, as the northern Greeks are free to call themselves such. They do, however, object to Greece's claims of ownership over the name Macedonia. Their views are outlined below.

Historical Perspective

From a historical perspective, Macedonian Slav scholars point out that Greece has attempted to claim ownership over an ancient kingdom which, in their view, was not Greek. Whilst it adopted Attic Greek for official discourse, the kingdom of Macedon had always been politically independent, though it should be noted that there was never a unified Greek state in antiquity prior to the expansion of the kingdom under Philip II. Macedon remained culturally distinct from the more advanced Greek city-states to the south, and has thus been viewed by some scholars as a separate entity. Greek scholars and lay people alike believe that there is an obvious continuity between the ancient Macedonians and modern Greeks, given that Greek is the closest living language to ancient Macedonian. This notion that the ancient Macedonians were Greeks has been accepted by many Western scholars. According to Macedonian Slav nationalists, the reason for this has been the lack of scrutiny or academic rigour on the part of these scholars. Conversely, a minority of Slav Macedonian scholars have attempted to show that ancient Macedonians were Slavic-speaking, a theory rejected by virtually all mainstream scholars, including mainstream Slav scholars. Most neutral scholars maintain that the ancient Macedonian language had an uncertain degree of affiliation to Greek. The ancient Macedonians ceased to exist as a distinct political entity after the Roman invasion. What is debated is the legacy of this once great kingdom. According to the Macedonian Slav view, flaws can be found with Greece's main objections about modern Macedonian Slavs: (1) Greece rejects any possible linkage between modern Macedonian Slavs and the ancient Macedonians, arguing that the Slavs are newcomers to the Balkans, arriving hundreds of years after, and (2) ancient Macedon was centred on what is now northern Greece (i.e. Greek Macedonia). However, historical records, anthropological theory, and now, population genetic studies suggest that the modern Slavic-speaking peoples of Macedonia have absorbed many elements of ancient populations that have lived in the Balkans, and Macedonia, since neolithic times. The Slavic component was merely the latest addition. Most of the region of Macedonia was Slavicized in the 700s, leading to one of the main hypotheses of Macedonism, namely that there was active symbiosis of whatever original Macedonian people and culture remained and the new Slavic tribes. However, the ancient Macedonians were universally considered to be Greek at least after the 4th century BCE, meaning that any such cultural fusion can only have occurred via the Greek medium. In modern times, Greek Macedonia was only fully Hellenized after the Balkan and World Wars through active population exchanges. Greeks from Bulgaria and Turkey were settled into Greek Macedonia. So the Macedonian Slav scholars find it arguable that these Greek people claim to be the 'true' legacy of ancient Macedon just because they now physically occupy the land loosely corresponding to the area of the ancient kingdom, when in fact their ancestors were actually Greeks who lived in Anatolia, not Macedonia. Nevertheless, there has been a continuous Greek presence in Macedonia since antiquity, with the Greek refugees that arrived in the first half of the twentieth century complementing the indigenous Macedonian Greek population of the region.

According to these theories, the ancient Macedonians imported a Hellenic way of life only after they conquered the Greek city-states. Proponents of this view argue that Greece should not hold exclusive 'rights' over the history and relics of a people whose affiliations and origins are controversial to this day. Moreover, they do not see that 'Slav Macedonians' hold any less legitimacy to also be proud of an ancient history that is common to the region of Macedonia, arguing that today's "ethnic" boundaries are artificially constructed borders which merely delineate linguistic jursidiction over a very mixed and heterogenous area.

The ethnic Macedonian minority in Greece

In the 6th and 7th centuries AD Slavic-speaking populations overturned the Greek ethnic composition of the wider Macedonia region, and Slavic languages have been spoken in the area alongside Greek in the region ever since. In parts of northern Greece, in the regions of Macedonia (Μακεδονία) and Thrace (Θράκη), Slavonic languages continue to be spoken by people with a wide range of self-identifications. The actual linguistic classification of these dialects is unclear, although most linguists will classify them as either Bulgarian or Macedonian Slavic taking into account numerous factors, including the resemblance and mutual intelligibility of each dialect to the standard languages (abstand), and the self-identification of the speakers themselves. As however the vast majority of these people don't have a non-Greek national identity, linguists will make their decisions based on abstand alone. The Slavic-speaking minority of northern Greece can be divided in to two main groups: Christians and Muslims. The latter has no reported connection to ethnic Macedonians.

The Christian portion of Greece's Slavic-speaking minority are commonly referred to as Slavophones (from the Greek Σλαβόφωνοι Slavophōnoi - lit. Slavic-speakers) or Dopii, which means "locals" in Greek. The vast majority of them espouse a Greek national identity and are bilingual in Greek. They live mostly in the Periphery of Western Macedonia and belong to the Greek Orthodox Church, which in conjunction with the millet system of the Ottoman Empire which occupied the region until 1913, may explain their self-identification as Greeks. In the 1951 census, 41,017 people claimed to speak the Slavic language. One unofficial estimate for 2000 puts their number at 1.8% of the Greek population, that is c.200,000.

This group has received some attention in recent years due to claims from the Republic of Macedonia that these people form an ethnic Macedonian minority in Greece. Multiple organisations and scholars of history and anthropology have stated that there is a minority within the Slavophone community in Greece which self-identifies as ethnic Macedonian.

There is a dispute over the size of this alleged minority, with most Greeks denying it outright, and most ethnic Macedonians inflating the numbers substantially. The Greek Helsinki Monitor reports that, "difficult and therefore risky it is to declare a Macedonian minority identity in such an extremely hostile if not aggressive environment in Greece". There are no official statistics to confirm or deny either claims. The Greek government has thus far refused on the basis that there is no significant such community and that the idea of minority status is not popular amongst the (Greek identifying) linguistic community of northern Greece as it would have the effect of them being marginalized.

Professor Danforth reports:

...Finally, the Greek government denies the existence of a Macedonian minority in northern Greece, claiming that there exists only a small group of "Slavophone Hellenes" or "bilingual Greeks," who speak Greek and "a local Slavic dialect" but have a "Greek national consciousness".

A political party promoting this line and claiming rights of what they describe as the "Macedonian minority in Greece" — the Rainbow (Виножито) — was founded in September 1998; it received a minimal support of 2,955 votes in the region of Macedonia in the latest elections (2004).

Macedonian language

Macedonian (Slavic)

The name of the Macedonian language (Macedonian: македонски јазик - makedonski jazik) as used by the people and defined in the constitution of the Republic of Macedonia is "Macedonian" (Macedonian: македонски - makedonski). This is also the name used by international bodies, such as the United Nations and the World Health Organisation. The name is also used by convention in the field of Slavic Studies.

However, for historical reasons, as well as due to a naming dispute with Greece, several other terms of reference are used when describing or referring to the language. Some of the names use the family to which the language belongs to disambiguate it from the undoubtedly non-Slavic and entirely different ancient Macedonian language, or from the homonymous dialect of modern Greek; sometimes the autonym "Makedonski" is used in English for the modern Slavic language, with "Macedonian" being reserved for the ancient language.

Professor Loring M. Danforth, reports the following:

In addition to affirming the existence of the Macedonian nation, Macedonians are concerned with affirming the existence of a unique Macedonian language as well. While acknowledging the similarities between Macedonian and other South Slavic languages, they point to the distinctions that set it apart as a separate language. They also emphasize that although standard literary Macedonian was only formally created and recognized in 1944, the Macedonian language has a history of over a thousand years dating back to the Old Church Slavonic used by Sts. Cyril and Methodius in the ninth century.

Nevertheless, standard Macedonian is mutually intelligible with standard Bulgarian and until the late 1940s, all activists and leaders of the Macedonian movement, including the leftists, used standard Bulgarian in documents, press publications, correspondence and memoirs and nothing indicates they viewed it as a foreign language. This is characteristic even of the members of IMRO (United) well into the 1920's and 1930's, when the idea of a distinct Macedonian nation was taking shape.

Macedonian (modern Greek)

There is also a dialect of modern Greek called Macedonian, spoken by the Macedonians. Greek, including all its modern variations, is the closest living language to ancient Macedonian, and has no relation to the Slavic languages except for their mutual inclusion in the Indo-European family and the Balkan sprachbund.

Macedonian (ancient)

The origins of the ancient Macedonian language are currently debated. It is as yet undetermined whether it was a Greek dialect which was part of or closely related to the Doric and/or Aeolic dialects, a sibling language of ancient Greek forming a Graeco-Macedonian or Hellenic supergroup, or an independent Indo-European language close to the Greek, Thracian and Phrygian languages. The scientific community generally agrees that, although some sources are available (e.g. Hesychius' lexicon, Pella curse tablet) there is no decisive evidence for supporting either hypothesis. Nevertheless, Attic Greek, a form of the Greek language, eventually supplanted it entirely in Macedonia, and ancient Macedonian became extinct during the first few centuries of the Common Era. Attic Greek evolved into Koine Greek and in turn into Byzantine and modern Greek.

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See also

• Macedonia (region)
• Macedonia (terminology)

Notice: Hyperlinks and emphasis in the quotations appearing in this article were not in the original source being quoted, but are merely used for disambiguation purposes.

• Geographical naming disputes