Macedonians (ethnic group)

Macedonians(Macedonian:Македонци,romanized:Makedonci[maˈkɛdɔnt͡si]) are anationand aSouth Slavicethnic group native to the region ofMacedoniainSoutheast Europe. They speakMacedonian, aSouth Slavic language. The large majority of Macedonians identify asEastern Orthodox Christians, who share a cultural and historical "Orthodox Byzantine–Slavic heritage" with their neighbours. About two-thirds of all ethnic Macedonians live inNorth Macedonia; there are alsocommunities 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 centuryamong limited circles of Slavic-speaking intellectuals, predominantly outside the region of Macedonia. They arose after theFirst World Warand especially during the 1930s, and thus were consolidated by Communist Yugoslavia's governmental policy after theSecond World War.The formation of the ethnic Macedonians as a separate community has been shaped bypopulation displacementas well as bylanguage shift,both the result of the political developments in the region ofMacedoniaduring the 20th century. Following thedissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the decisive point in theethnogenesisof the South Slavic ethnic group was the creation of theSocialist Republic of Macedoniaafter World War II, a state in the framework of theSocialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. This was followed by the development of a separate Macedonian language and national literature, and the foundation of a distinctMacedonian Orthodox Churchand national historiography.
In antiquity, much of central-northern Macedonia (theVardar basin) was inhabited byPaionianswho expanded from the lower Strymon basin. The Pelagonian plain was inhabited by thePelagonesand theLyncestae,ancient Greektribes ofUpper Macedonia; whilst the western region (Ohrid-Prespa) was said to have been inhabited byIllyriantribes, such as theEnchelae.During the late Classical Period, having already developed several sophisticatedpolis-type settlements and a thriving economy based on mining,Paeonia became a constituent province of theArgead–Macedonian kingdom.In 310 BC, theCeltsattacked deep into the south, subduing various local tribes, such as theDardanians, the Paeonians and theTriballi.Romanconquest brought with it a significantRomanizationof the region. During theDominateperiod, 'barbarian'foederatiwere settled on Macedonian soil at times; such as theSarmatianssettled byConstantine the Great(330s AD)or the (10 year) settlement ofAlaric I'sGoths.In contrast to 'frontier provinces', Macedonia (north and south) continued to be a flourishing Christian, Roman province inLate Antiquityand into theEarly Middle Ages.
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' ofSclaveniandAntesfromWallachiaand western Ukraine during the 6th and 7th centuries.However, recent anthropological and archaeological perspectives have viewed the appearance ofSlavsin Macedonia, and throughout theBalkansin 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 remainedRomanin its cultural outlook into the 7th century.Yet at the same time, sources attest numerousSlavic tribesin the environs ofThessalonikiand further afield, including theBerzitiin Pelagonia.Apart from Slavs and late Byzantines,Kuver's "Sermesianoi"– a mix ofByzantine Greeks,BulgarsandPannonian Avars– settled the "Keramissian plain" (Pelagonia) aroundBitolain the late 7th century.Later pockets of settlers included "Danubian"Bulgarsin the 9th century;Magyars (Vardariotai)andArmeniansin the 10th–12th centuries,CumansandPechenegsin the 11th–13th centuries,andSaxon minersin 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, theSklaviniaeof Macedonia switched their allegiance to the Bulgarians with their incorporation into theBulgarian Empirein the mid-800s.In the 860s, Byzantine missionariesCyril and Methodiuscreated theGlagolitic alphabetand Slavonic liturgy based on the Slavic dialect aroundThessalonikifor a mission toGreat Moravia.After the demise of the Great Moravian mission in 886, exiled students of the twoapostlesbrought the Glagolitic alphabet to theBulgarian Empire, where KhanBoris 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 thePreslav Literary SchoolandOhrid Literary School, which taught Slavonic liturgy and the Glagolitic and subsequently theCyrillic alphabet.The success of Boris I's efforts was a major factor in making the Slavs in Macedonia—and the other Slavs within theFirst Bulgarian State—intoBulgariansand transforming theBulgarstate into aBulgarianstate.Subsequently, the literary and ecclesiastical centre inOhridbecame a second cultural capital of medieval Bulgaria.
After the final Ottoman conquest of the Balkans by the Ottomans in the 14th/15th century, all Eastern Orthodox Christians were included in a specific ethno-religious community underGraeco-Byzantinejurisdiction calledRum Millet. Belonging to this religious commonwealth was so important that most of the common people began to identify themselves asChristians.However, ethnonyms never disappeared and some form of primary ethnic identity was available.This is confirmed from a Sultan'sFirmanfrom 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 centurythe Slavic-speaking population majority in the region ofMacedoniawere more commonly referred to (both by themselves and outsiders) asBulgarians.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 aRomansubject 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 theOttoman era, before the 19th-centuryrise of nationalism, it was based on the correspondingconfessional community.
Therise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empirein 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 afirmanfor the creation of theBulgarian Exarchatewas issued.In September 1872, the Ecumenical PatriarchAnthimus VIdeclared the Exarchate schismatic andexcommunicatedits 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 wasVeles.
However, in 1874, the Christian population of thebishopricsofSkopjeandOhridwere 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, the1876 Conference of Constantinopleincluded 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 1878Treaty of San Stefano, also included Macedonia, but the treaty was never put into effect and theTreaty 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 Christianchiflikowners and urban merchants, who usually identified with the Greek nation, as a way to escape arbitrary taxation byPatriarchatebishops, via shifting allegiance to theExarchateand 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".
The first expressions ofMacedonian nationalismoccurred in the second half of the 19th century mainly among intellectuals inBelgrade,Sofia,ThessalonikiandSt. Petersburg.Since the 1850s some Slavic intellectuals from the area adopted the Greek designationMacedonianas a regional label, and it began to gain popularity.In the 1860s, according toPetko 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 newspaperMakedoniya. Its main task was "to educate these misguided [sic]Grecomansthere", who he called alsoMacedonists.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 theirown local dialectand what's more, of their own, separate Macedonian church leadership."The activities of these people were also registered by the Serbian politicianStojan Novaković,who promoted the idea to use theMacedonian nationalismin 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 wasGeorgi Pulevski, who in 1875 published in Belgrade aDictionary 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 aGrammar 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 inchoateand to resemble a regional phenomenon.In 1885,Theodosius of Skopje, a priest who held a high-ranking position within theBulgarian Exarchate, was chosen as a bishop of theepiscopacyofSkopje. In 1890 he renounced de facto the Bulgarian Exarchate and attempted to restore theArchbishopric of Ohridas a separate Macedonian Orthodox Church in all eparchies ofMacedonia,responsible for the spiritual, cultural and educational life of all Macedonian Orthodox Christians.During this time period Metropolitan BishopTheodosius of Skopjemade a plea to the GreekPatriarchate of Constantinopleto allow a separate Macedonian church, and ultimately on 4 December 1891 he sent aletterto the Pope Leo XIII to ask for arecognitionand aprotectionfrom the Roman Catholic Church, but failed. Soon after, he repented and returned to pro-Bulgarian positions.In the 1880s and 1890s,Isaija Mažovskidesignated 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 includingLeonhard Masing,Pyotr Lavrov,Jan Baudouin de Courtenay, andPyotr 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 OrganizationleaderBoris Sarafovin 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.
In 1903,Krste Misirkovpublished in Sofia his bookOn Macedonian Matters, wherein he laid down the principles of the modern Macedonian nationhood and language. This book, written in the standardizedcentral 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 autocephalousArchbishopric of Ohridshould 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 theByzantine Greekswho starting calling the local Slavs "Bulgarians" because of their alliance with theBulgars, during the incessantByzantine–Bulgarian conflictwhich 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 inOn Macedonian Matters.Later in his life, Misirkov oscillated between a pro-Macedonist andGreater Bulgarianstance, including controversially claimed that all Macedonian andTorlakian dialectswere, in fact,Bulgarian.
Another major figure of the Macedonian awakening wasDimitrija Čupovski, one of the founders of theMacedonian Literary Society, established inSaint Petersburgin 1902. One of the members was also Krste Misirkov. In 1905 the Society publishedVardar, the first scholarly, scientific and literary journal in the central dialects of Macedonia, which later would contribute in the standardization ofMacedonian language.In 1913, the Macedonian Literary Society submitted theMemorandum of Independence of Macedoniato the British Foreign Secretary and other European ambassadors, and it was printed in many European newspapers. In the period 1913–1914, Čupovski published the newspaperМакедонскi 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.
From 1878 until 1918, most independent European observers viewed theSlavs of Macedoniaas 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 bySpiridon Gopčevićclaiming the Slavs of Macedonia asSerbs, a version of a Russian map, published in 1891, in a period of deterioration ofBulgarian-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 theMurzsteg 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 theIlinden uprisingof 1903, indicated the complexity of the issue.Influenced by the conclusions of the research of young SerbJovan Cvijić, that Macedonia's culture combinedByzantine influencewith Serbian traditions, a map of 1903 by Austrian cartographerKarl Peuckerdepicted 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 theBabunaandPlačkovicamountains 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 theIMRO's appeals to "Macedonians" into an ethnic one.Bulgarian cartographerAnastas Ishirkovcountered 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.
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 byAlfred 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 theTreaty of Bucharesthe published his third ethnographic map distinguishing the Macedo-Slavs betweenSkopjeandSalonicafrom both Bulgarians andSerbo-Croats, on the basis of the transitional character of their dialect per the linguistic researches ofVatroslav JagićandAleksandar Belić, and the Serb features of their customs, such as thezadruga.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 theCentral Powersin 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 theEntenteapproached victory in theFirst World War, a number other maps and atlases, including those produced by theAlliesreplicated Cvijić's ideas, especially its depiction of the Macedo-Slavs.The prevalence of theYugoslavpoint of view, obligedGeorgios Sotiriades, a professor of History at theUniversity 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 theParis 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.
After theBalkan Wars(1912–1913) and the World War I (1914–1918), following the division of the region ofMacedoniaamongst theKingdom of Greece, theKingdom of Bulgariaand theKingdom 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 Myrivilisnoted 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 ChristianSlavs inhabiting GreekandVardar Macedoniaused the collective name "Macedonians" to describe themselves, either as a nation or as a distinct ethnicity.The 1928 Greek census recorded 81,844Slavo-Macedonianspeakers, distinct from 16,755 Bulgarian speakers.In 1924 thePolitis–Kalfov Protocolwas 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 Dragoumishad argued this viewpoint.
The consolidation of an international Communist organization (theComintern) in the 1920s led to some failed attempts by the Communists to use theMacedonian Questionas 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-calledMay Manifesto, in which independence of partitioned Macedonia was required.In 1925 with the help of the Comintern, theInternal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (United)was created, composed of former left-wingInternal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization(IMRO) members. This organization promoted for the first time in 1932 the existence of a separate ethnic Macedonian nation.In 1933 theCommunist Party of Greece, in a series of articles published in its official newspaper, theRizospastis, 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 aresolution supporting the development of the entity.This action was attacked by the IMRO, but was supported by theBalkancommunists. 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.
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 theNational Liberation War of Macedoniain the 1940s. According to historianIvan Katardžievthose 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 thePeople's Republic of Macedoniawithin theSocialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia(SFRJ).
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 inpost-World War IIMacedonia, Yugoslavia's state policy of forcedSerbianisationwas changed with a new one — ofMacedonization. The codification of Macedonian and the recognition of the Macedonian nation had the main goal: finally to ban anyBulgarophiliaamong the Macedonians and to build a new consciousness, based on identification with Yugoslavia. As a result, Yugoslavia introduced again an abruptde-Bulgarizationof the people in thePR Macedonia, such as it already had conducted in theVardar Banovinaduring theInterwar period. Bulgarian sources claim around 100,000 pro-Bulgarian elements were imprisoned for violations of the specialLaw 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 ofCommunist Yugoslavia, increased to the level ofstate 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.
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 thatallmodern 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 theByzantine commonwealthand theRum milletand 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 controversialnation-buildingprojectSkopje 2014and 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 betweenethnic BulgariansandBulgarian 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 asBulgarians by origin,have few ties with Bulgaria.Further, those applying forBulgarian citizenshipusually say they do so to gain access tomember states of the European Unionrather than to assert Bulgarian identity.This phenomenon is calledplaceboidentity.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 the2021 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.
The national name derives from theGreektermMakedonía, related to the name of theregion, named after theancient Macedoniansand theirkingdom. It originates from theancient Greekadjectivemakednos, meaning "tall",which shares its roots with the adjectivemakrós, meaning the same.The name is originally believed to have meant either "highlanders" or "the tall ones", possibly descriptive of theseancient people.In theLate Middle Agesthe name of Macedonia had different meanings for Western Europeans and for the Balkan people. For the Westerners it denoted the historical territory of theAncient Macedonia, but for the Balkan Christians, it covered the territories of the formerByzantine province of Macedonia, situated around modern TurkishEdirne.
With the conquest of the Balkans by theOttomansin 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 modernGreekstate with its Western Europe-derivedobsession with Ancient Greece.As a result of therise of nationalism in the Ottoman Empire, massive Greekreligious and school propagandaoccurred, and a process ofHellenizationwas implemented among Slavic-speaking population of the area.In this way, the nameMacedonianswas applied to the local Slavs, aiming to stimulate the development ofclose tiesbetween them and theGreeks, linking both sides to theancient Macedonians, as a counteract against the growingBulgarian cultural influenceinto 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 ofregionalismto neutralize the Bulgarian influx, thereby promoting Serbian interests there.The local educatorKuzman Shapkarevconcluded that since the 1870s this foreign ethnonym began to replace the traditional oneBulgarians.At the dawn of the 20th century the Bulgarian teacherVasil Kanchovmarked that the local Bulgarians andKoutsovlachscall themselves Macedonians, and the surrounding people also call them in the same way.During theinterbellumBulgaria also supported to some extent the Macedonianregional identity, especially in Yugoslavia. Its aim was to prevent theSerbianizationof the local Slavic speakers, because the very nameMacedoniawas 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.
The vast majority of Macedonians live along the valley of the riverVardar, 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 the2002 census). Smaller numbers live in easternAlbania, northern Greece, and southernSerbia, mostly abutting the border areas of theRepublic 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.
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 ethnicGreeksor rejecting both ethnic designations and preferring terms such as"natives"instead.In 1999 theGreek Helsinki Monitorestimated 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 ofFlorina.Since then ethnic Macedonian organisations including theRainbow political partyhave been established.Rainbowfirst opened its offices in Florina on 6 September 1995. The following day, the offices had been broken into and had been ransacked.Later Members ofRainbowhad been charged for "causing and inciting mutual hatred among the citizens" because the party had bilingual signs written in bothGreekandMacedonian.On 20 October 2005, theEuropean Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)ordered the Greek government to pay penalties to theRainbow Partyfor violations of 2 ECHR articles.Rainbowhas 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.Rainbowhas recently re-establishedNova 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.
WithinSerbia, Macedonians constitute an officially recognised ethnic minority at both a local and national level. WithinVojvodina, Macedonians are recognised under theStatute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, along with other ethnic groups. Large Macedonian settlements within Vojvodina can be found inPlandište,Jabuka,Glogonj,DužineandKačarevo. These people are mainly the descendants of economic migrants who left theSocialist Republic of Macedoniain the 1950s and 1960s. TheMacedonians in Serbiaare 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.
Macedonians represent the second largest ethnic minority population inAlbania. Albania recognises the existence of a Macedonian minority within theMala Presparegion, most of which is comprised byPustec Municipality. Macedonians have full minority rights within this region, including the right to education and the provision of other services inMacedonian. There also exist unrecognised Macedonian populations living in theGolo Brdoregion, the "Dolno Pole" area near the town ofPeshkopi, aroundLake OhridandKorceas well as inGora. 4,697 people declared themselves Macedonians in the 1989 census.
Bulgariansare 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 theRepublic of North Macedonia.According to the 2011 Bulgarian census, there were 561 ethnic Macedonians (0.2%) in theBlagoevgrad Province,the Bulgarian part of the geographical region ofMacedonia, out of a total of 1,654 Macedonians in the entire country.Also, a total of 429 citizens of theRepublic of North Macedoniaresided in the province.
In 1998, Krassimir Kanev, chairman of the non-governmental organizationBulgarian Helsinki Committee, claimed that there were 15,000–25,000 ethnic Macedonians in Bulgaria (seehere). 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 inPirin Macedoniahad a Bulgarian national self-consciousness and aregional Macedonian identitysimilar to the Macedonian regional identity inGreek 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, theBulgarian Constitutional CourtbannedUMO 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.
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.
Most Macedonians can be found inBuenos Aires,the PampasandCórdoba. An estimated 30,000 Macedonians can be found in Argentina.
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,CanberraandPerth. The 2006 census recorded 83,983 people of Macedonian ancestry and the 2011 census recorded 93,570 people of Macedonian ancestry.
An estimated 45,000 people in Brazil are of Macedonian ancestry.The Macedonians can be primarily found inPorto Alegre,Rio de Janeiro,São PauloandCuritiba.
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.
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 inMichigan, New York,Ohio,IndianaandNew Jersey
There are an estimated 61,000 citizens of North Macedonia in Germany (mostly in theRuhrgebiet) (2001).
There are 74,162 citizens of North Macedonia in Italy (Foreign Citizens in Italy).
In 2006 the Swiss Government recorded 60,362 Macedonian Citizens living in Switzerland.
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.
Macedonians began relocating to Slovenia in the 1950s when the two regions formed a part of a single country,Yugoslavia.
Sizeable Macedonian communities can also be found in theUnited Kingdom, as well as inEuropean Unioncountries, like theNetherlands,AustriaandFrance.
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 ofBulgariansandSerbs.
The typical Macedonian village house is influenced byOttoman 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.
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 byJanaki and Milton ManakiinBitola. In 1995Before the Rainbecame 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 inPrilepin honor ofVojdan Černodrinski, the founder of the modern Macedonian theater. Each year a festival of amateur and experimental Macedonian theater companies is held inKočani.
Macedonian music has many things in common with the music of neighboringBalkancountries, but maintains its own distinctive sound.
The founders of modern Macedonian painting includedLazar Licenovski,Nikola Martinoski,Dimitar Pandilov, andVangel Kodzoman. They were succeeded by an exceptionally talented and fruitful generation, consisting ofBorka Lazeski,Dimitar Kondovski,Petar Mazevwho are now deceased, andRodoljub Anastasovand many others who are still active. Others include:Vasko TaskovskiandVangel Naumovski. In addition toDimo Todorovski, who is considered to be the founder of modernMacedonian sculpture, the works ofPetar Hadzi Boskov,Boro Mitrikeski,Novak DimitrovskiandTome Serafimovskiare also outstanding.
In the past, the Macedonian population was predominantly involved withagriculture, 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.
Macedonian (македонски јазик) is a member of the Eastern group ofSouth Slavic languages.Standard Macedonianwas implemented as the official language of theSocialist Republic of Macedoniaafter beingcodifiedin the 1940s, and has accumulated a thrivingliterary tradition.
The closest relative of Macedonian isBulgarian,followed bySerbo-Croatian. All theSouth Slavic languagesform adialect continuum, in which Macedonian and Bulgarian form anEastern subgroup. TheTorlakiandialect group is intermediate between Bulgarian, Macedonian and Serbian, comprising some of the northernmostdialects of Macedonianas well as varieties spoken in southern Serbia and western Bulgaria. Torlakian is often classified as part of the Eastern South Slavic dialects.
TheMacedonian alphabetis an adaptation of theCyrillic script, as well as language-specific conventions of spelling and punctuation. It is rarelyRomanized.
Most Macedonians are members of theMacedonian 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 inexarchatesin theMacedonian diaspora.
The church gained autonomy from theSerbian Orthodox Churchin 1959 and declared the restoration of the historicArchbishopric of Ohrid. On 19 July 1967, the Macedonian Orthodox Church declaredautocephalyfrom the Serbian church. Due to protest from the Serbian Orthodox Church, the move was not recognised by any of the churches of theEastern 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 theRoman Catholicand theProtestantchurches.
Between the 15th and the 20th centuries, duringOttoman rule, a number of Orthodox Macedonian Slavs converted to Islam. Today in the Republic of North Macedonia, they are regarded asMacedonian Muslims, who constitute the second largest religious community of the country.
Macedonian cuisineis a representative of the cuisine of theBalkans—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 itsdairy products, wines, and local alcoholic beverages, such asrakija.Tavče Gravčeandmastikaare considered the national dish and drink of North Macedonia, respectively.
Symbols used by members of the ethnic group include:
Anthropologically, Macedonians possess genetic lineages postulated to represent Balkan prehistoric and historicdemographic processes.Such lineages are also typically found in neighboringSouth Slavssuch asBulgariansandSerbs, in addition toGreeks,Albanians,RomaniansandGagauzes.
Y-DNA studies suggest that Macedonians along with neighboring South Slavs are distinct from otherSlavic-speakingpopulations in Europe and near half of theirY-chromosome DNA haplogroupsare 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 Europewhile 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 inWestern Europeand G2a is most frequently found inCaucasusand the adjacent areas. According to a DNA data for 17 Y-chromosomalSTR lociin Macedonians, in comparison to other South Slavs andKosovo Albanians, the Macedonian population had the lowest genetic (Y-STR) distance against the Bulgarian population while having the largest distance against theCroatianpopulation. 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 theEastern Balkans(Macedonia,ThraceandMoesia) 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 theWestern South Slavs. Most probably on the territory of Western South Slavs was a state of desolation which produced there afounder effect.The region of Macedonia suffered less disruption than frontier provinces closer to the Danube, with towns and forts close toOhrid,Bitolaand along theVia 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-dayPeloponnesianGreeks carry a small, but significant amount of Slavic ancestry; theadmixtureranged from 0.2% to 14.4%.