page_title: History of Skopje
section_title: Balkan and World Wars
hierarchical_section_title: History of Skopje / Balkan and World Wars
caption_attribution_description: English: Skopje (Photo: Hugo Grothe, 1913 )
context_page_description: The history of Skopje, North Macedonia, goes back to at least 4000 BC; remains of Neolithic settlements have been found within the old Kale Fortress that overlooks the modern city centre. The settlement appears to have been founded around then by the Paionians, a people that inhabited the region. It became the capital of Dardania, which extended from Naissus to Bylazora in the second century BC. Roman expansion east brought Skupi under Roman rule on the eve of the 1st century AD. When the Roman Empire was divided into eastern and western halves in 395 AD, Skupi came under Byzantine rule from Constantinople. During much of the early medieval period, the town was contested between the Byzantines and the Bulgarian Empire. It served as Bulgarian capital from 972 to 992. After 1018, it was a capital of Byzantine theme of Bulgaria after the fall the First Bulgarian Empire. In 1189 the town was part of the Serbian realm later becoming the capital of the Serbian Empire. In 1392 the city was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and they named the town Üsküb. The town stayed under Ottoman rule for over 500 years. During that period it was famous for its oriental architecture.
context_section_description: As the administrative centre of the region, Üsküb also administered the vilayet of Kossovo under Ottoman rule. This did not go down well with the increasingly Albanian population of Kosovo who preferred to be ruled by Albanians rather than the Turks (whereas Kosovo Serbs, similar in demographics to the Kosovo Albanians at the time, sought to join the Kingdom of Serbia). During the Albanian revolt of 1912, the Ottomans were shortly expelled from the city during August 12–15, 1912 by the local Albanian population when 15,000 Albanians marched on and captured Üsküb.
  The Turks, already weak from other battles against the united front of Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria during the First Balkan War, started to flee.
  When reinforcements to the Serbian royal army arrived some weeks later during the Battle of Kumanovo (50 km northeast of Skopje) it proved decisive in firmly driving out the Ottomans from all of Macedonia. Skopje remained occupied by the Kingdom of Serbia during the Second Balkan War of 1913 when the formerly united front started to fight amongst themselves. Treaty of London (1913) legitimated Serbian authority in contemporary Macedonia. After the outbreak of World War I in 1914 the town was occupied by the Kingdom of Bulgaria. Since 1918 it was part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and remained so until 1939, apart from a brief period of six months in 1920 when Skopje was controlled by the Yugoslav Communist Party.
  The inter-war period of Royalist Yugoslavia saw significant immigration of ethnic Serbs into the region. An ethnic Serb ruling elite dominated over the rest, continuing the repression wrought by previous Turkish rulers.
  In March 1941 when Yugoslavia entered the war, there were huge anti-war demonstrations in the streets of the town. Skopje came under German occupation on 7 April 1941 and was later taken over by Bulgarian forces. During the occupation, Bulgaria endowed Skopje with a national theatre, a library, a museum and for higher education the King Boris University. However, on 11 March 1943, Skopje's entire Jewish population of 3,286 was deported to the gas chambers of Treblinka concentration camp in German-occupied  Poland. One month after the communists took power in September 1944 in Sofia, three Bulgarian armies reentered occupied Yugoslavia. On November 13, units of First and Fourth Bulgarian Army, as well as, detachments of the Macedonian National Liberation Army seized  Skopje. Then it joined Yugoslavia in 1944, when it became the capital of the newly established People's Republic of Macedonia.
caption: Vardar River in 1913.
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