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For other meanings, see Macedonian (disambiguation).

The Macedonians (Macedonian: Македонци) - also referred to as Macedonian Slavs - are a South Slavic ethnic group who live in the southern Balkans region of Europe. They speak the Macedonian language, a South Slavic language, and most of them are part of the Macedonian Orthodox Church. The majority of Macedonians today inhabit parts of the geographical region of Macedonia (shared with Macedonian Greeks and Bulgarians), with the largest single population inhabiting the Republic of Macedonia.

The Macedonians are primarily the descendants of the Slavic tribes which settled Macedonia during the 6th and 7th century AD, but it is presumed by some historians (Kanchov; Weigand) that these Slavic tribes probably absorbed some indigenous populations that they came upon in the area. Later groups such as the Bulgars mixed with the Slavonic-speakers in the region, as stated by the Byzantine chroniclers Theophanes and Nicephorus. The Macedonians are culturally and linguistically closely related with the Bulgarians, with the two peoples' languages being mutually intelligible.

Areas of settlement

The vast majority of Macedonans live in the valley of the river Vardar, the central region of the Republic of Macedonia, where they form about 64.18% of the population of the Republic of Macedonia. Smaller numbers live in eastern Albania, south-western Bulgaria, northern Greece, and southern Serbia and Montenegro, mostly abutting the border areas of the Republic of Macedonia. A large number of Macedonians have immigrated overseas to Australia, USA, Canada and in many European countries: Germany, UK, Italy, Austria, etc.

Major Populations of Macedonians by country

See also:The present situation of Macedonians in neighboring countries

• Republic of Macedonia: 1,297,981 (2002 census)
• Serbia and Montenegro: 25,847 (2002 census)
• Bulgaria: 5,071 (2001 census). Krassimir Kanev, chairman of the NGO Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, claimed 15,000 - 25,000 in 1998 . In the same report Macedonian nationalists (Popov et al, 1989) claim that 200,000 Macedonians live in Bulgaria.
• Albania: 5,000 (1989 census) - Neutral estimates vary from 10,000 to 30,000 . Macedonian sources have claimed that there are 120,000 - 350,000 Macedonians in Albania .
• Greece: Unknown - The Hutchinson Encyclopedia estimates the number of the Macedonian speakers living in Greece between 100,000 - 200,000 (1994). Also Ethnologue lists 180,180 speakers of Slavic in Greece, but makes no claims as to their ethnic affiliation, nor to the methods used to obtain that figure. The government of the Republic of Macedonia in 1993 claimed that there are between 230,000 and 270,000 Macedonians living in northern Greece (page 13). Greece has not conducted a census on the question of mother tongue since 1951, when 41,017 speakers of the Slavic language were recorded. It should be noted that Slavic speakers in Greece vary on how they describe their language, some describing it as (Slavic) Macedonian and some as Bulgarian, the ratio between both factions being unknown .

Significant Macedonian communities can also be found in the traditional immigrant overseas countries, as well as in western European countries:

• Australia: The official number of Macedonians in Australia by ancestry of birthplace of parents is 82,000 (2001). Macedonians are mainly inhabited in the following Australian cities: Melbourne, Sydney, Wollongong, Canberra and Perth.
• Canada: The Canadian census in 2001 records 31,265 individuals claimed wholly- or partly- Macedonian heritage in Canada (2001), although community spokesmen have claimed that there are actually 100,000 - 150,000 Macedonians in Canada (see also Macedonian Canadians).
• USA: A significant Macedonian community can be found in the United States of America. The official number of Macedonians in the USA is 43,000 (2002). Macedonians are mainly inhabited in the following American states: Michigan, New York, Ohio, Indiana, New Jersey .
• Germany: According to official data, there are 61,000 citizens of the Republic of Macedonia in Germany (2001)
• Italy: According to official data, there are 58,460 citizens of the Republic of Macedonia in Italy (2004)

Other significant Macedonian communities can also be found in the other western European countries such as Austria, France, Switzerland, Netherlands, United Kingdom, etc.

Origins and identities

The geographical region of Macedonia, which is divided between Bulgaria, Greece and the Republic of Macedonia, has been inhabited by a variety of peoples, including Albanians, Bulgarians, Jews, Turks, Serbs, Roma, Greeks and Vlachs. The oldest recorded continuous presence are the Greeks.

In Bulgaria, and to some extent in Greece, the question of whether the Macedonians constitute a distinct ethnic group is controversial - the popular and the academic consensus in these countries regards them as a branch of the Bulgarians. The majority of international organizations consider modern ethnic Macedonians to be a distinct cultural, if not ethnic group.

Historians generally date the arrival of the Slavs in Macedonia and the Balkans to the 6th or 7th centuries AD. The Macedonians had little or no political national identity of their own until the 20th century. Any Macedonian identity during the Byzantine centuries is mostly expressed through the Greek medium. Medieval sources traditionally describe them as Bulgarians, a definition which survived well into the period of Ottoman rule as attested by the Ottoman archives and by descriptions of historians and travellers, for example Evliya Celebi and his Book of Travels.

During the Ottoman rule, there is no documentation attesting to a specific Macedonian national identity, be it Slav, Greek or otherwise, until the 20th century. From the 17th century, authors who declared themselves 'Macedonian' did so in the context of publishing Greek books and belonging to the Greek nation. 19th century ethnographers and travellers were generally united in identifying the Slavic speakers as Bulgarians, at least until the period between 1878 and 1912 when the rival propaganda of 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 (Henry Brailsford).

In the late 19th century and the beginning of 20th century, there were many clashes between Serbophile Chetniks (originating from Macedonia) and Bulgarophile Komitas from all over Slavic-speaking Macedonia, which shows the lack of a distinctive urge to form a Macedonian nation state.

The key events in the formation of a distinctive "Macedonian" identity thus emerged during the first half of the 20th century in the aftermath of the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 and especially following the Second World War.

The Balkan Wars

The Balkan Wars resulted in drastic changes to Macedonia's demographics after the Ottomans 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 Greece, and the northeastern to Bulgaria.

The territory of the present-day Republic of Macedonia came under the direct rule of Serbia (and later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia), 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 programme of "Serbianization" was implemented during the 1920s and 1930s when Belgrade enforced a Serbian cultural assimilation process on the region. Between the world wars in Serbia, Macedonian dialects were treated as a Serbian dialects (UCLA Language Material Sources, ). Only the literary Serbian language was taught, it was the language of government, education, media, and public life; even so Macedonian literature was tolerated as a local dialectal folkloristic form. The Serbian National Theatre in Skopje even performed some of the Macedonian language plays (now the classical drama pieces) (UCLA Language Material Sources, ).

Greece adopted strongly repressive policies towards the Slavic population in its northern regions, mainly due to its experiences with Bulgaria's expansionist policy during the Second Balkan War. Many of those inhabiting northeastern Greece fled to Bulgaria or Serbia after the Balkan wars or were exchanged with native Greeks from Bulgaria under a population exchange treaty in the 1920s.

The Slavophones that stayed in northwestern Greece were regarded as a potentially disloyal "Bulgarian minority" and came under severe pressure, with restrictions on their movements, cultural activities and political rights; many emigrated, for the most part to Canada, Australia, USA and eastern European countries like Bulgaria. A number of Slavic and Turkish place names and Slavic personal surnames were renamed during this period either by seeing their Greek pronouciation become official (eg. Lerin becoming Florina, or adopting new names, 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 Hellenization. Many of the border villages were closed to outsiders, ostensibly for security reasons. 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 (Macedonia (Greece)).

On August 10, 1920, upon signing the Treaty of Sèvres 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 "Slav-speaking 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 Cyrillic, since Cyrillic was the official alphabet of neighboring Bulgaria and Serbia. The book was to be held up as proof that a Macedonian Slavic tongue existed and that it was neither Bulgarian nor Serbian, but a distinct language protected and encouraged by the State. This would mean that the Greek government officially recognized for the first time a separate national entity of the Macedonians within Greece. But after fears from Serbia and Bulgaria that the Macedonians in their borders might demand the same rights, the Abecedar school books were confiscated and destroyed before they got into the reach of the children HRW pg.42.

Macedonians after the Second World War

After the Second World War, the Communist Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito decided that the policy of Serbianization in Macedonia had failed - it had led to strong resentment of Belgrade. In addition, the Macedonians had been strong supporters of Tito's Partisan resistance movement, fighting the occupying Bulgarians, Germans and Italians as well as opposing the Serbian royalist Chetniks, who were, until midway through the war, the West's favorite rebels in Serbia. The Macedonian resistance had a strongly nationalist character, not least as a reaction to Serbia's pre-war repression, same as to the Bulgarian repression during the beginning of the Bulgarian occupation of the region. It was clear well before the end of the war that Tito would seek major changes to the region's political balance.

Following the war, Tito supported the separation of Yugoslav Macedonia from Serbia, making it a republic of the new federal Yugoslavia (as the People's Republic of Macedonia) in 1946. He also supported the concept of a separate Macedonian nation, as a means of further severing the ties of the Slav population of Yugoslav Macedonia with Bulgaria, which were already questionable after the strong Macedonian resistance to the Bulgarian occupation. The differences between the Macedonian and Bulgarian language were emphasized and the region's historical figures were promoted as being uniquely Macedonian (rather than Serbian or Bulgarian). A separate Macedonian Orthodox Church was established, splitting off from the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1967 (only partly successfully, because the church has not been recognised by any other Orthodox Church yet). The ideologists of a separate and independent Macedonian country, same as the pro-Bulgarian and pro-Serbian sentiment was forcibly suppressed.

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, which could undermined the unity of the Yugoslav federation. Thirdly, Tito sought to justify future Yugoslav claims towards the rest of geographical Macedonia; in August 1944, 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 state, which would also probably have included Albania, and supported the Greek Communists in the Greek Civil War. The idea of reunification of all of Macedonia under Communist rule was abandoned in 1948 when the Greek Communists lost and Tito fell out with the Soviet Union and pro-Soviet Bulgaria.

Tito's actions had a number of important consequences for the Macedonians. The most important was, obviously, the promotion of a distinctive Macedonian identity as a part of the multiethnic society of Yugoslavia. The last restrictions to an existing national sentiment were lifted. There have been numerous accounts from northern Macedonia from the late 1940s that the policy of Bulgarization during the Bulgarian occupation (1941–1944) was as abhorrent for the ordinary Macedonian as the policy of Serbization until then. IMRO's leader in exile, Ivan Mihailov, 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 Goli Otok for pro-Bulgarian sympathies or ideas for independent Macedonia in the late 1940s., which has also been stated by former prime minister Ljubčo Georgievski . 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 1991, convictions were still being handed down for pro-Bulgarian statements.

In Greece, they faced considerably tighter restrictions as its government saw them as a potentially disloyal minority. Greeks were resettled in the region in two occasions, firstly following the Bulgarian loss of the Second Balkan War when Bulgaria and Greece mutually deported their populations (1913), and secondly in 1923 as a result of the population exchange with Turkey that followed the Greek military defeat in Asia minor. After the Second World War many of the 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 (see: Greek Civil War), or were forced to do so. Although there was some liberalization between 1959 and 1967, 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 slavophone Macedonian political and rights organisations.

The Macedonians in Albania faced restrictions under the Stalinist dictatorship of Enver Hoxha, though ordinary Albanians were little better off. Their existence as a separate minority group was recognised as early as 1945 and a degree of cultural expression was permitted.

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 1940s. In 1946, the population of Blagoevgrad Province (also referred to as Pirin Macedonia) was declared Macedonian and teachers were brought in from Yugoslavia to teach the Macedonian language. The census of 1946 was accompanied by mass repressions, the result of which was the complete destruction of the local organisations of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization and mass internments of people at the Belene concentration camp. The policy was reverted at the end of the 1950s and later Bulgarian governments argued that the two censuses of 1946 and 1956 which recorded up to 187,789 Macedonians (of whom over 95% were said to live in Blagoevgrad Province (Pirin Macedonia)) were the result of pressure from Moscow. Western governments, however, continued to list the population of Blagoevgrad Province as Macedonian until the beginning of the 1990s despite the 1965 census which put Macedonians in the country at 9,000. The two latest censuses after the fall of Communism (in 1992 and 2001) 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.

During this period, ethnic Macedonians living in the region continue to complain of official harassment. This was confirmed in 2005 by the European Court of Human Rights with a judgement whereby Bulgaria was sentenced to pay damages amounting to 6800 euros 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 "UMO Ilinden" and "UMO Ilinden-Pirin", the two Macedonian political parties in Bulgaria.

A similar judgement was passed against Greece for also violating Article 11 in regards of the members of the Rainbow, the registered political party of the Macedonians living in Greece.

Symbols

• Sun: The official flag of the Republic of Macedonia, adopted in 1995, is a yellow sun 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 coat of arms 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 Socialist Federal Republic of Macedonia. 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 centre 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 Communism. All this is said to represent "the richness of our country, our struggle, and our freedom".

• 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 lion 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 VMRO-DPMNE, a Macedonian political party. Initially, it was adopted as a state symbol by Bulgaria.

Former official symbols

• The flag of the former Yugoslav Federal Republic of Macedonia (1945-1991)
• Sun: (official flag, 1992-1995) The Vergina Sun is occasionally used to represent the Macedonian people by the diaspora through associations and cultural groups. The Vergina sun was historically the emblem of ancient Macedonian kings such as Alexander the Great and Philip II. The symbol was discovered in the Greek region of Macedonia and Greeks regard it as an exclusively Greek symbol, unrelated to Slavic cultures. 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. Nevertheless, the Vergina sun is still used unofficially as a national symbol by some groups in the country along with the new state flag.

The situation today

The secession of the Republic of Macedonia from the former Yugoslavia in 1991 led to an intense nationalist dispute with Greece which has not yet fully been resolved. The position of the Macedonians has improved somewhat across the region, although significant problems do still remain.

• Within the Republic of Macedonia, Macedonians comprise two-thirds (65.2%) of the population. Following a brief conflict with ethnic Albanians in 2001, a Macedonian-Albanian power-sharing agreement is now in place.
• Albania continues to recognise the Macedonians as a legitimate minority and delivers primary education in the Macedonian language in the border regions where most Macedonians live. However, Macedonian organizations complain that the government undercounts the number of Macedonians in Albania and that they are politically underrepresented - there are no ethnic Macedonians in the Albanian parliament. Some say that in last 15 years their have been disagreement among the Slavophone Albanian citizens about their being members of a Macedonian nation.
• Bulgaria maintains generally cordial relations with the Macedonians, recognizing them as a distinct ethnic group and last counting them in the 2001 census. However, Macedonian groups in the country have reported official harassment, with the Bulgarian Constitutional Court banning a small Macedonian political party in 2000 as separatist and Bulgarian local authorities banning political rallies. The 5000-strong Macedonian population in Bulgaria claims to have experienced a period of intensive assimilation and repression.
• Greece does not recognise any ethnic minorities. Legally, Greece only recognises a "religious minority", the Greek Muslim minority, in Thrace, and opposes the use of the term "Macedonians" to refer to the country's Slav minority, which is centred on the northern Greek town of Florina. The term "Slavomacedonians" or "Slavophones" is sometimes used instead, to distinguish them from the greek-speaking inhabitants of Macedonia. There is a Slavic macedonian political party in Greece, the Rainbow: their last (2004) election tally amounted to 6,176 votes (or 0.1%) nationwide (2,955 in the region of Macedonia - out of which 1,200 in the Prefecture of Florina - and the rest 3,221, were from other parts of Greece. The majority of the Macedonians in Greece have today a Greek national identity, as a result of either conscientious choice or coercion (discrimination, abuse) of their ancestors in the first half of the twentieth century . A second group of Macedonians is made up of those who seem to reject any national identity (Greek or Macedonian) but have a distinct ethnic identity, which they may call "indigenous" or "natives" (Greek: dopia) . Only a small group of Macedonians, estimated at 10,000 - 30,000 have a clear Macedonian national identity.
• Serbia and Montenegro recognizes the Macedonian minority on its territory as a distinct ethnic group and counts them in its annual census.

See also

• A list of famous Macedonians
• Macedonian Canadians
• Rainbow, a Macedonian party in Greece
• UMO Ilinden-Pirin, a Macedonian organisation in Bulgaria
• Ethnogenesis

References

• Keith Brown, The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation, Princeton University Press, 2003. ISBN 0691099952.
• Jane K. Cowan (ed.), Macedonia: The Politics of Identity and Difference, Pluto Press, 2000. A collection of articles.
• Loring M. Danforth, The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World, Princeton University Press, 1995. ISBN 0691043566.
• Anastasia N. Karakasidou, Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia, 1870-1990, University Of Chicago Press, 1997, ISBN 0226424944. Reviewed in Journal of Modern Greek Studies 18:2 (2000), p465.
• Peter Mackridge, Eleni Yannakakis (eds.), Ourselves and Others : The Development of a Greek Macedonian Cultural Identity since 1912, Berg Publishers, 1997, ISBN 1859731384.
• Hugh Poulton, Who Are the Macedonians?, Indiana University Press, 2nd ed., 2000. ISBN 0253213592.
• Victor Roudometof, Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict: Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question, Praeger Publishers, 2002. ISBN 0275976483.

External links

• macedonia.org, a site representing the views of the Macedonians
• Online Journal on Macedonian History and Culture, including relevant sources, documents and texts, pro-Macedonian
• faq.macedonia.org Macedonians In Greece
• History of Macedonia according to Macedonians
• New Balkan Politics - Journal of Politics

• Ethnic groups in Albania
• Ethnic groups in Bulgaria
• Ethnic groups in Europe
• Ethnic groups in Greece
• Ethnic groups in Macedonia
• Ethnic groups in Serbia
• Ethnic groups in Vojvodina
• Slavic nations