page_title: History of the Macedonians (ethnic group)
section_title: Ottoman Empire, Turkification and Islamization
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Macedonians (ethnic group) / Middle ages / Ottoman Empire, Turkification and Islamization
caption_attribution_description: Page first of the article "Macedonian Question" written by Petko R. Slaveikov and published 18th January 1871 in the "Macedonia" newspaper in Constaninople.
context_page_description: The history of the ethnic Macedonians has been shaped by population shifts and political developments in the southern Balkans, especially within the region of Macedonia. The ideas of separate Macedonian identity grew in significance after the First World War, both in Vardar Macedonia and among the left-leaning diaspora in Bulgaria, and were endorsed by the Comintern. During the Second World War these ideas were supported by the Communist Partisans, but the decisive point in the ethnogenesis of this South Slavic people was the creation of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia after the World War II, as a new state in the framework of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
context_section_description: This expansion of medieval states on the Balkan Peninsula was discontinued by the occupation of the Ottoman Empire in the 14th century. The region of Macedonia remained part of the Ottoman Empire for the next 500 years, until 1912. Islamization means the process of a society's conversion to the religion of Islam, or a neologism meaning an increase in observance by an already Muslim society.  Turkification is a cultural change in which someone who is not a Turk becomes one, voluntarily or by force. Both terms can be used in contexts of connection with various Slavic people in Macedonia (Pomaks, Torbesh, and Gorani), which converted to Islam during the Ottoman rule. Overall, the large majority of local Bulgarians remained Christian.
caption: The first page of Petko Slaveykov's article "The Macedonian question" published 18 January 1871, in which he mentions that some people from Macedonia declare themselves as separate people -  Macedonians, different from Bulgarians. Those people he refers to as "Macedonists"
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