page_title: Demographic history of Macedonia
section_title: Serbian propaganda
hierarchical_section_title: Demographic history of Macedonia / Macedonian question / Serbian propaganda
context_page_description: The region of Macedonia is known to have been inhabited since Paleolithic times.
context_section_description: 19th century Serbian nationalism viewed Serbs as the people chosen to lead and unite all southern Slavs into one country, Yugoslavia (the country of the southern Slavs). The conscience of the peripheral parts of Serbian nation grew, therefore the officials and the wide circles of population considered the slavs of Macedonia as "Southern Serbs", Moslems as "Islamized Serbs", and Shtokavian speaking part of today's Croatian population as "Catholic Serbs". But, the basic interests of Serbian state policy was directed to the liberation of the Ottoman regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo; whilst Macedonia and Vojvodina should be "liberated later".
  The Congress of Berlin of 1878, which granted Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austro-Hungarian occupation and administration whilst nominally Ottoman, redirected Serbia's ambitions to Macedonia and a propaganda campaign was launched at home and abroad to prove the Serbian character of the region. A great contribution to the Serbian cause was made by an astronomer and historian from Trieste, Spiridon Gopčević (also known as Leo Brenner). Gopčević published in 1889 the ethnographic research Macedonia and Old Serbia, which defined more than three-quarters of the Macedonian population as Serbian. The population of Kosovo and northern Albania was identified as Serbian or Albanian of Serbian origin (Albanized Serbs, called "Arnauts") and the Greeks along the Aliákmon as Greeks of Serbian origin (Hellenized Serbs).
  The work of Gopčević was further developed by two Serbian scholars, geographer Jovan Cvijić and linguist Aleksandar Belić. Less extreme than Gopčević, Cvijić and Belić claimed only the Slavs of northern Macedonia were Serbian whereas those of southern Macedonia were identified as "Macedonian Slavs", an amorphous Slavic mass that was neither Bulgarian, nor Serbian but could turn out either Bulgarian or Serbian if the respective people were to rule the region.
caption: From the Serbian point of view, the Slavs of Macedonia were Serbian-speakers
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