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The term Macedonians (Template:Lang-el) refers to the inhabitants of and the people originating from Macedonia, Greece. Most of this population is concentrated in the capital city of Thessaloniki but spread across the whole of Greece and abroad.
History
In the Middle Ages, Macedonia was under the rule of the Byzantine Empire and later the Ottoman Empire. During this time, a significant population of Greeks that maintained the Orthodox Christian religion inside the region. During the Ottoman rule, the definition of Macedonia came to encompass a specific region in the North of the Greek peninsula different from the previous Byzantine. Thessaloniki, remained for the larger sum the predominant city of the region. Other important cities in Macedonia, such as Monastiri, were founded during the Ottoman period. During the Balkan wars, Thessaloniki became the prize city for the struggling parties. Greece claimed the whole of Macedonia (Greece) saying it was rightfully it's own. The claim was made in part because of the minority population of Macedonian Greeks that lived in Thessaloniki and the rest of the region. Another reason was the fact that ancient Macedonia was attributed as part of Greek history. Following the Balkan Wars, Greece managed to cede the region from the dissolving Ottoman empire. There are monuments in West Macedonia commemorating the Greeks from Macedonia that fought and died in the Balkan Wars to "liberate Macedonia" from the Ottoman rule.
After the hostilities ended, the greater Macedonia region was divided between Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia with mixed populations in every side of the borders. With the end of the hostilities, a great number of settlers by the population exchange from Turkey arrived in the Greek part, mixing with the local Greek inhabitants. In the coming years the Hellenization policy effectively homogenized Macedonians in Greece. Today, descendants of these settlers now self-identify also as Macedonian in a regional sense and Greeks in the ethnic sense. There is also a significant minority of Slavic-speakers mainly in West Macedonia.
Macedonian Identity
See also Regional identity in Macedonia (Greece)
The identity of Greeks from the Macedonia province in Greece has significant connotations in the context of the Macedonia naming dispute. About a million of Greeks, most of them Macedonian, participated in the "1992 Rally for Greek Macedonia", a very large demonstration that took place at Thessaloniki in 1992. The point of the rally was to object to Macedonia being a part of the then newly established Republic of Macedonia. In a following major rally in Australia, held in Melbourne and organized by the Macedonian (Greek) diaspora, 100,000 people took part. The major slogan of these rallies was "Macedonia is Greek". In 2008, responding to issues raised by the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the Prime minister of Greece Kostas Karamanlis self-proclaimed as "Macedonian" and "Greek". Kostas Karamanlis, and the late former prime minister of Greece Konstantinos Karamanlis (his uncle), are Macedonians and ethnic Greeks with origin from Serres, Eastern Macedonia.
Notable Macedonians
In Ancient Macedonia
Main list: list of Ancient Macedonians
- The Argead Dynasty to which Alexander the Great belonged self proclaimed to be Greeks
- During the Hellenistic Age various Greeks of the time were referred to as Macedonians
Middle ages to present time
Main list: list of Macedonians (Greek)
- Michael Astrapas and Eutychios, iconographers of Greek icons
- Prochorus Cydones (1330-1369) Scholastic theologian
- Theodorus Gaza (c. 1400 – 1475) Renaissance humanist and translator of Aristotle
- Andronikos Kallistos (1400 - 1486) Teacher of Greek literature in Bologna, Rome, Florence, Paris and London.
- Kallinikos Manios (1624 - 1665) Founder of the first Greek school in Veroia.
- Ioannis Kottounios (1572 - 1657) Founder the Greek museum Kottounian Hellinomouseio
- Dimitrios Karakasis Born (1734) Physician in Vienna, Larisa, Siatista, Kozani, Bucharest.
- Grigorios Zalykis (1777-1820), born in Thessaloniki, Greek writer, founder of "Ellenoglosson Xenodochion"
- Konstantinos Christou, first leader of the Macedonian struggle
Modern politicians
See also List of Prime Ministers of Greece
- Stephanos Dragoumis, Prime Minister of Greece from 1909 to 1910.
- Konstantinos Karamanlis, Prime Minister of Greece from 1955 to 1963 and from 1974 to 1980 President of Greece from 1980 to 1985 and from 1990 to 1995.
- Kostas Karamanlis, the current Prime minister of Greece.
See Also
- Macedonians (disambiguation)
- Struggle for Macedonia
- Macedonia (terminology)
- Macedonia naming dispute
Reference List
- Vakalopoulos, Apostolos E. "History of Macedonia 1354-1833", Vanias Press (1984)
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