North Macedonia History

Europe Macedonia

Historic Macedonia traces its origins to the 6th century B.C. kingdom of Macedon. It rose to ancient glory under Alexander the Great who subjected Greece and the Persian Empire to his rule in the 3rd century B.C.  Macedonia proper occupied most of the mountainous region north of Greece between the Adriatic and Aegean seas. It became a province of the Roman Empire in the 2nd century B.C. During the 6th and 7th centuries A.D. Slavic peoples moved into Macedonia from the north. The area was subjected to Ottoman rule after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and did not emerge from that control until the 20th century. During most of the period its territory was divided between three Ottoman provinces (vilayets): Salonika, Monastir, and Skopje.

In Ottoman Macedonia the Turks constituted the upper classes and non-Muslim population was called rayah (flock). The rayah could not carry or possess arms; paid higher taxes than the Turks; and relinquished children to serve in the sultan’s army. Only a small percentage of Macedonians converted to Islam. Christian clergy were permitted to control church activities, revenues and civil cases between Christians. An Orthodox archbishopric existed in Ohrid between 1000-1767 when Ottoman authorities abolished it and, in an effort to eliminate national churches in the empire, transferred ecclesiastical control of the area to the Orthodox patriarch in Constantinople. In 1870 this situation was reversed with the establishment of the Bulgarian exarchate that received the support of Macedonians, mainly because of its Slavic character. In 1958, over two hundred years after its initial dissolution, an independent Macedonian Orthodox Church was established in Ohrid.

Macedonian aspirations for autonomy led to the formation of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (MRO) in 1893. It fomented the St. Elijah’s Day (Ilinden) uprising in 1903, a large-scale demonstration against Ottoman rule that was brutally crushed. More than 12,400 homes were burnt in 201 settlements, 9,000 people were killed, and 70,000 people left homeless.

Ottoman hegemony over its European possessions collapsed during the Balkan wars, 1912-1913. Historic Macedonia was divided primarily between Serbia and Greece with only a small piece remaining in Bulgaria. The different regions are sometimes referred to as Aegean Macedonia (Greece), Vardar Macedonia (Serbia), and Pirin Macedonia (Bulgaria).

Vardar Macedonia was a battlefield during World War I with about 1,200,000 soldiers deployed in the region. The war turned all the cities into ruins, destroyed the infrastructure, and killed a huge percentage of the civilian population. The survivors were included in the Yugoslav kingdom formed in 1918.

After the war, the Serbs pursued a program of assimilation where the Macedonian language was forbidden, the Serbian language was taught in the schools, and was required in cultural, governmental and commercial spheres. Macedonians could not own property outside their county of residence. Serbs were brought in to colonize large tracks of arable land. The new Communist regime after World War II established Macedonia as a Yugoslavian state and re-established Macedonian as its official language.

Before Word War II, Vardar Macedonia was the most undeveloped part of Yugoslavia, as well as of Europe. After the war, the Communist regime focused on industrializing the primarily rural economy. While the economy was diversified, many people migrated to the cities where they could not be absorbed, creating an unemployment and housing problem.

The Communist period lasted from 1946-1991. The language and alphabet were refined. Macedonian came to be based on a dialect distinct from both Serbo-Croatian and literary Bulgarian, though it is structurally closer to Bulgarian.

When Yugoslavia dissolved by civil war, Macedonia emerged as a newly independent nation. Serbia and Bulgaria still hold that Slav Macedonians are essentially Serb or Bulgarian. On September 8, 1991, it held a referendum in which its inhabitants voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence. It had received general international recognition by 1993 when it was admitted into the United Nations.

Greece objected to the name adopted by the new nation, which they consider as part of Greek heritage, and also to Macedonia’s use of the sixteen point Star of Vergina (an emblem associated with Alexander the Great). Additionally, Greece worried that a Macedonian state might make irredentist claims on historic Macedonian territory now part of Greece. Because of these concerns, Greece opposed the integration of the nation into the European community and in 1994 closed its northern border to Macedonian commerce except for humanitarian aid. In 1995 this problem was resolved when Greece conceded the use of the name and Macedonia adopted an eight-point Vergina star as a national emblem.

Macedonia is still the subject of Serbian and Bulgarian territorial claims. At the country’s request since 1992 an UN peacekeeping force has monitored Macedonia’s northern border with Serbia and Kosovo, and its northwestern border with Albania. In June 1994 the peacekeepers forced Yugoslavian troops to back off from positions they had taken which Macedonia claimed were over the border. In 1995 the president was seriously injured by a car bomb explosion. The bombing was linked to a Bulgaria-based company in Macedonia.

Modern Macedonia is a small nation with insufficient economic, transportation, and communications infrastructure to sustain a prosperous economy and insure its viability as a modern state. It is surrounded by much larger nations and is land-locked. The principal route to the sea runs through Greece to the Aegean Sea.