Origins

The Macedonians are a South Slavic people who trace their origins to the migration of Slavs that reached the southern Balkans during the sixth and seventh centuries. At that time, much of the Balkan peninsula was part of the Byzantine Empire. Macedonia was strategically located, since through its territory passed a major east-west trade route connecting Byzantium’s capital Constantinople with the Adriatic Sea, as well as a north-south route along the Vardar River linking the Aegean port of Salonika (Solun/Thessaloniki) with the northern hinterland of the Balkan Peninsula.

It was the strategic location of Macedonia that made it attractive. Aside from Byzantium, Macedonia was ruled at various times throughout the medieval period by Bulgaria, Serbia, and finally the Ottoman Empire. While part of Bulgaria, Macedonia accepted from Byzantium in the 860s the Eastern Orthodox variant of Christianity, and by the tenth century the lakeside town of Ochrid became an important cultural centre and seat of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. The first written language and alphabet formulated for Slavic peoples by the Byzantine missionaries Cyril and Methodius was in fact based on the spoken language of the Macedonian Slavs.

During the first half of the fifteenth century, Macedonia was annexed to the rapidly expanding Ottoman Empire. It was to remain under Ottoman rule until 1913. Under the Ottomans, Macedonia was an underdeveloped land inhabited primarily by poor shepherds and farmers who at best eked out a subsistence-level existence.

Macedonia continued to be coveted, however, by several political forces. This was particularly the case during the nineteenth century, when the various peoples of the Balkans overthrew Ottoman rule and created independent states. This process had come to be known as the Eastern Question, which was characterized by rivalries between Europe’s Great Powers as well as between the new states of Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria for control of the Ottoman-held region of Macedonia.

In Macedonia itself the struggle first was carried out within the framework of the Orthodox Church. The Bulgarian Orthodox church based in Ochrid was abolished in 1767, and thereafter the Slavs of Macedonia and Bulgaria came under the jurisdiction of the Greek ecumenical patriarch. The Patriarchists, as they were known, promoted the use of Greek in all churches and schools under their control. Greek cultural and religious dominance was challenged in the nineteenth century by a Bulgarian national renaissance which called for the revival of a Bulgarian Orthodox Church. This came into existence in 1870 in the form of the Bulgarian Exarchate. Instead of Greek, the Exarchate promoted the use of the Church Slavonic and Bulgarian languages in its churches and schools. During the religious struggle that was played out in Macedonia between the Greek “Patriarchists” and Bulgarian “Exarchists,” many Slavs in Macedonia welcomed the Bulgarian national movement and began to identify as Bulgaro-Macedonians, or simply as Bulgarians.

Aside from the cultural and religious conflicts, an underground movement emerged in 1893 known as the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), which hoped to create an independent Macedonian state. To achieve that goal IMRO staged a revolt against Ottoman rule in 1903. Although it failed, the Ilinden Uprising, as the revolt was known, entered the historical memory of Macedonians as a symbol of their struggle against foreign oppression. It was also during the last decades of the nineteenth century that a few leaders began to argue that Macedonian Slavs represent a distinct nationality deserving of its own literary language.

The internal struggle over religious jurisdiction and national orientation was overshadowed by external political and military events. Macedonia was the primary object of concern among rival powers pitted against the Ottoman Empire during both the First and Second Balkan Wars (1912–13). As a result of those wars, Macedonia was divided between Serbia (Vardar Macedonia) and Greece (Aegean Macedonia), with a small part remaining in Bulgaria (Pirin Macedonia). These boundaries remained basically the same after World War I, although Serbia’s Vardar Macedonia was now part of the state of Yugoslavia.

During World War II, Bulgaria, as an ally of Nazi Germany, annexed Vardar Macedonia from Yugoslavia. When the war ended in 1945, the pre-war borders were re-established. Post-war Yugoslavia found itself under Communist rule and was transformed into a federal republic. One of its six republics was Macedonia, in which for the first time the Macedonian Slavs were officially recognized as a distinct nationality with their own codified literary language, schools, and cultural institutions. A separate Macedonian Autocephalous (independent) church was also established, although to this day it is not recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate or by other Orthodox churches. When federal Yugoslavia disintegrated in 1991, Macedonia became an independent state.

Ever since World War II, Greece and Bulgaria have refused to accept the “Yugoslav” solution to the Macedonian question and have adamantly denied that Macedonians exist as a distinct people. This has caused political friction, since Bulgaria generally claims that all Macedonians are Bulgarians while the official position of Greece is that within its borders – in particular its northern province of Makedonia – there are only Greeks, some of whom may be Slavophone Greeks.

Immigrants and their descendants from various parts of historic Macedonia have been influenced by the attitudes and policies of the various regimes that have ruled and that continue to rule their homeland. It is, therefore, not surprising to find Macedonian Slavs from the same region, the same town, even the same family describing themselves with different national or ethnic identities – Macedonian, Greek, Bulgarian. (See also BULGARIANS; GREEKS. )