North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the north. It constitutes approximately the northern third of the larger geographical region of Macedonia. Skopje, the capital and largest city, is home to a quarter of the country's population of over 1.83 million. The majority of the residents are ethnic Macedonians, a South Slavic people. Albanians form a significant minority at around 25%, followed by Turks, Roma, Serbs, Bosniaks, Aromanians and a few other minorities.
In classical antiquity most of present-day North Macedonia corresponded to the ancient regions of Paeonia and Pelagonia. In the late-6th century BC, most of the area was subjugated by the Persian Empire, and then incorporated into the kingdom of Macedonia by the mid-4th century BC. Rome conquered the region by the mid-2nd century BC and made it part of its larger province of Macedonia. The area remained part of the Byzantine Empire, but was often raided and settled by Slavic tribes beginning in the 6th century CE. Following centuries of contention between the Byzantine and Bulgarian empires, it became part of the Serbian Empire in the mid-14th century, and then it was part of the Ottoman Empire from the late-14th century until the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), when it came under Serbian rule.
During the First World War, the territory was ruled by Bulgaria. After the end of the war, it returned to Serbian rule as part of the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. During the Second World War, it was again ruled by Bulgaria; and in 1945 it was established as a constituent state of communist Yugoslavia, which it remained until its peaceful secession in 1991. The country became a member of the United Nations (UN) in 1993.
North Macedonia is a member of NATO, the Council of Europe, the World Bank, OSCE, CEFTA, BSEC and the WTO. Since 2005, it has also been a candidate for joining the European Union. North Macedonia is an upper-middle-income country by the World Bank's definitions and has undergone considerable economic reform since its independence in developing an open economy. It is a developing country, ranking 68th on the Human Development Index, with low income inequality. The country provides social security, a universal health care system as well as free primary and secondary education to its citizens.
Names and etymology
The state's name derives from the Greek word Μακεδονία (Makedonía), a kingdom (later, region) named after the ancient Macedonians. Their name, Μακεδόνες (Makedónes), ultimately derives from the ancient Greek adjective μακεδνός (makednós), meaning 'tall' or 'taper', which shares the same root as the adjective μακρός (makrós, 'long, tall, high') in ancient Greek. The name is believed to have originally meant either 'highlanders' or 'the tall ones', possibly descriptive of the people. According to the linguist Robert S. P. Beekes, both terms are of pre-Greek substrate origin and cannot be explained in terms of Indo-European morphology. According to linguist Filip De Decker, Beekes's arguments are insufficiently supported.
Apart from the Byzantine theme of Macedonia, the name "Macedonia" was largely forgotten as a geographical denomination through the Byzantine and Ottoman eras but was revived by Bulgarian and Greek nationalist movements from the early 19th century onwards. It was revived only in middle of the century, with the rise of nationalism in the Ottoman Empire. In the early 20th century the region was already a national cause, contested among Bulgarian, Greek, and Serbian nationalists. During the interwar period the use of the name "Macedonia" was prohibited in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, due to the implemented policy of Serbianisation of the local Slavic-speakers. The name "Macedonia" was adopted officially for the first time at the end of the Second World War by the new Socialist Republic of Macedonia, which became one of the six constituent countries of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
After the breakup of Yugoslavia, this federal entity declared independence and proclaimed as its official name the "Republic of Macedonia" in 1991.
The Prespa agreement of June 2018 saw the country change its name to the "Republic of North Macedonia" eight months later. A non-binding national referendum on the matter passed with 90% approval but did not reach the required 50% turnout amidst a boycott, leaving the final decision with parliament to ratify the result. Parliament approved of the name change on 19 October, reaching the required two-thirds majority needed to enact constitutional changes. The vote to amend the constitution and change the name of the country passed on 11 January 2019 in favour of the amendment. The amendment entered into force on 12 February, following the ratification of the Prespa agreement and the Protocol on the Accession of North Macedonia to NATO by the Greek Parliament. Many of the country's citizens and local media outlets unofficially refer to the country as "Macedonia".
History
Ancient period
North Macedonia geographically roughly corresponds to the ancient kingdom of Paeonia, which was located immediately north of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia. In early times, the chief town and seat of the Paeonian kings was Bylazora (in modern Sveti Nikole municipality in North Macedonia) on the Vardar; later, the seat of the kings was moved to Stobi (near modern Gradsko). Paeonia was inhabited by the Paeonians, whilst the northwest was inhabited by the Illyrian Dardani and southwest by the Enchelae (also an Illyrian tribe), as well as Pelagones and Lyncestae of Upper Macedonia (generally regarded as Molossian tribes of the northwestern Greek group).
In the late 6th century BC, the Achaemenid Persians under Darius the Great conquered Paeonia, incorporating the area within their vast territories. Following their defeat in the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 479 BC, the Persians eventually withdrew from their European territories.
Philip II of Macedon absorbed the regions of Lynkestis, Pelagonia and the southern part of Paeonia (Deuriopus) into the kingdom of Macedon in 356 BC. After the death of Agis, the kingdom of Paeonia then led by Lycceius, became vassal to Philip II in 356 BC. A Paeonian cavalry contingent, led by Ariston, possibly brother of King Patraus and father of the later king Audoleon, was attached to Alexander the Great's army. Alexander wished to bestow the hand of his sister Cynane upon Langarus, king of the Agrianians, who had shown himself loyal to Philip II. Scupi and the surrounding area remained part of Dardania.
In 310 BC, Celtic armies attacked the area, but were defeated by Cassander. In 279, the Gauls defeated Ptolemy Ceraunus and got as far as Delphi and it is certain that Paeonia was overrun and held for a time by their chieftain Brennus, but in the wake of the Celtic invasion, Leon reestablished the Paeonian kingdom. In 230 BC the Dardani under Longarus captured Bylazora. In 227 BC, Antigonus Doson reconquered the southern part of Paeonia and founded the city of Antigoneia, and ten years after Philip V of Macedon captured Bylazora; after this Perseis and Astraion were founded.
Roman period
The Romans established the province of Macedonia in 146 BC. By the time of Diocletian, the province was subdivided between Macedonia Prima ("first Macedonia") in the south, encompassing most of the kingdom of Macedon, and Macedonia Salutaris (meaning "wholesome Macedonia", known also as Macedonia Secunda, "second Macedonia") in the north, encompassing the whole of Paeonia and parts of Dardania, with the city of Stobi as its capital. This comprised most of the territory of the modern country. Roman expansion brought the Scupi area under Roman rule in the time of Domitian (81–96 AD), and it fell within the Province of Moesia. Whilst Greek remained the dominant language in the eastern part of the Roman empire, especially south of the Jireček Line, Latin spread to Macedonia to some extent.
Medieval period
Slavic tribes settled in the Balkan region including North Macedonia by the late 6th century AD. They were led by Pannonian Avars. The Slavs settled on places of earlier settlements and probably merged later with the local populations to form mixed Byzantine-Slavic communities. Historical records document that in c. 680 a Bulgar ruler called Kuber led a group of largely Christians called Sermesianoi, who were his subjects, and they settled in the region of Pelagonia. They may have consisted of Bulgars, Byzantines, Slavs and even Germanic tribes. There is no more information of Kuber's life.
Presian's reign apparently coincides with the extension of Bulgarian control over the Slavic tribes in and around Macedonia. The Slavic tribes that settled in the region of Macedonia converted to Christianity around the 9th century during the reign of Tsar Boris I of Bulgaria. The Ohrid Literary School became one of the two major cultural centres of the First Bulgarian Empire, along with the Preslav Literary School. Established in Ohrid in 886 by Saint Clement of Ohrid on the order of Boris I, the Ohrid Literary School was involved in the spreading of the Cyrillic script.
After Sviatoslav's invasion of Bulgaria, the Byzantines took control of eastern Bulgaria. Samuil was proclaimed Tsar of Bulgaria. He moved the capital to Skopje and then to Ohrid, which had been the cultural and military centre of southwestern Bulgaria since Boris I's rule. Samuil re-established Bulgarian power, but after several decades of conflicts, in 1014, the Byzantine Emperor Basil II defeated his armies, and within four years the Byzantines restored control over the Balkans (modern-day North Macedonia was included into a new province, called Bulgaria). The rank of the autocephalous Bulgarian Patriarchate was lowered due to its subjugation to Constantinople and it was transformed into the Archbishopric of Ohrid. By the late 12th century, Byzantine decline saw the region contested by various political entities, including a brief Norman occupation in the 1080s.
In the early 13th century, a revived Bulgarian Empire gained control of the region. Plagued by political difficulties, the empire did not last, and the region came once again under Byzantine control in the early 14th century.
In the 14th century, it became part of the Serbian Empire. Skopje became the capital of Tsar Stefan Dušan's empire. Following Dušan's death, a weak successor appeared, and power struggles between nobles divided the Balkans once again. These events coincided with the entry of the Ottoman Turks into Europe.
The Kingdom of Prilep was one of the short-lived states that emerged from the collapse of the Serbian Empire in the 14th century and was seized by the Ottomans at the end of the same century.
Ottoman period
Gradually, all of the central Balkans were conquered by the Ottoman Empire and remained under its domination for five centuries as part of the province or Eyalet of Rumelia. The name Rumelia (Turkish: Rumeli) means "Land of the Romans" in Turkish, referring to the lands conquered by the Ottoman Turks from the Byzantine Empire. Over the centuries, Rumelia Eyalet was reduced in size through administrative reforms, until by the 19th century it consisted of a region of central Albania and western North Macedonia with its capital at Manastir or present-day Bitola. Rumelia Eyalet was abolished in 1867 and that territory of Macedonia subsequently became part of vilayets of Manastir, Kosova and Selanik until the end of Ottoman rule in 1912. With the beginning of the Bulgarian National Revival in the 19th century, many of the reformers were from this region, including the Miladinov brothers, Rajko Žinzifov, Joakim Krčovski, Kiril Pejčinoviḱ and others. The bishoprics of Skopje, Debar, Bitola, Ohrid, Veles, and Strumica voted to join the Bulgarian Exarchate after it was established in 1870.
Modern period
Macedonian autonomism
Several movements whose goals were the establishment of an autonomous Macedonia, which would encompass the entire region of Macedonia, began to arise in the late 19th century; the earliest of these was the Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees, later becoming Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (SMARO). In 1905 it was renamed the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (IMARO), and after World War I the organisation separated into the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) and the Internal Thracian Revolutionary Organisation (ITRO).
In the early years of the organisation, membership eligibility was exclusive to Bulgarians, but later it was extended to all inhabitants of European Turkey regardless of ethnicity or religion. The majority of its members were Macedonian Bulgarians. In 1903, IMRO organised the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising against the Ottomans, which after some initial successes, including the forming of the Kruševo Republic, was crushed with much loss of life. The uprising and the forming of the Kruševo Republic are considered the cornerstone and precursors to the eventual establishment of the Macedonian state. The leaders of the Ilinden uprising are celebrated as national heroes in North Macedonia. The names of IMRO revolutionaries like Gotse Delchev, Pitu Guli, Dame Gruev and Yane Sandanski were included into the lyrics of the national anthem of the state of North Macedonia "Denes nad Makedonija" ("Today over Macedonia"). The major national holiday of North Macedonia, the Republic Day, is celebrated on 2 August, Ilinden (St. Elijah day), the day of the Ilinden uprising.
Kingdom of Serbia
Following the two Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, most of its European-held territories were divided between Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia. Most of the territory that was to become North Macedonia was annexed by Serbia conforming to the treaty of peace concluded at Bucharest. However, Strumica region was passed to Bulgaria. Following the partition, an anti-Bulgarian campaign was carried out in the areas under Serbian and Greek control. As many as 641 Bulgarian schools and 761 churches were closed by the Serbs, while Exarchist clergy and teachers were expelled. The use of all Macedonian dialects and standard Bulgarian were proscribed. IMRO, together with local Albanians, organised the Ohrid–Debar uprising against the Serbian rule. Within a few days the rebels captured the towns of Gostivar, Struga and Ohrid, expelling the Serbian troops. According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace report, a Serbian army of 100,000 regulars suppressed the uprising. Many were killed and tens of thousands of refugees fled to Bulgaria and Albania.
World War I
During the First World War, most of today's North Macedonia was part of the Bulgarian occupied zone of Serbia after the country was invaded by the Central Powers in the fall of 1915. The region was known as the "Military Inspection Area of Macedonia" and was administered by a Bulgarian military commander. A policy of Bulgarisation of the region and its population was immediately initiated, during the period the IMRO arose from a clandestine organisation to serve as gendarmerie, taking control of the whole police structure, enforcing the Bulgarisation of the region. According to Robert Gerwarth, the Bulgarian denationalisation policy, including its paramilitary aspect, was almost identical in its intent and execution to the Serbian policy that preceded it.
Bulgarian language was to be exclusively used, Serbian Cyrillic was forbidden, Serbian priests were arrested and deported, Serbian-sounding names had to be changed to Bulgarian ones, school teachers were brought from Bulgaria while Serbian books were taken from schools and libraries and publicly destroyed. Adult males were sent to labour camps or forced to join the Bulgarian Army, representatives of the Serbian intelligentsia were deported or executed. According to Paul Mojzes the aim of the Bulgarian government was to create pure Bulgarian territories by denationalising the non-Bulgarian Slavic population of Macedonia.
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
After the capitulation of Bulgaria and the end of the First World War, the area returned under Belgrade control as part of the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and saw a reintroduction of anti-Bulgarian measures. Bulgarian teachers and clergy were expelled, Bulgarian language signs and books removed, and all Bulgarian organisations dissolved. Also after the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine, the Strumica region was annexed to Serbian Macedonia in 1919.
The Serbian government pursued a policy of forced Serbianisation in the region, which included systematic suppression of Bulgarian activists, altering family surnames, internal colonisation, exploiting workers, and intense propaganda. To aid the implementation of this policy, some 50,000 Serbian army and gendarmerie were stationed in present-day North Macedonia. By 1940 about 280 Serbian colonies (comprising 4,200 families) were established as part of the government's internal colonisation program (initial plans envisaged 50,000 families settling in present-day North Macedonia).
In 1929, the Kingdom was officially renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and divided into provinces called banovinas. South Serbia, including all of present-day North Macedonia, became the Vardar Banovina of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) promoted the concept of an Independent Macedonia in the interwar period. Its leaders—including Todor Alexandrov, Aleksandar Protogerov, and Ivan Mihailov—promoted independence of the Macedonian territory split between Serbia and Greece for the whole population, regardless of religion and ethnicity. The Bulgarian government of Alexander Malinov in 1918 offered to give Pirin Macedonia for that purpose after World War I, but the Great Powers did not adopt this idea because Serbia and Greece opposed it. In 1924, the Communist International (Comintern) suggested that all Balkan communist parties adopt a platform of a "United Macedonia" but the suggestion was rejected by the Bulgarian and Greek communists.
IMRO followed by starting an insurgent war in Vardar Macedonia, together with Macedonian Youth Secret Revolutionary Organization, which also conducted guerrilla attacks against the Serbian administrative and army officials there. In 1923 in Stip, a paramilitary organisation called Association against Bulgarian Bandits was formed by Serbian chetniks, IMRO renegades and Macedonian Federative Organization (MFO) members to oppose IMRO and MMTRO. On 9 October 1934, IMRO member Vlado Chernozemski assassinated Alexander I of Yugoslavia.
The Macedonist ideas increased in Yugoslav Vardar Macedonia and among the left diaspora in Bulgaria during the interwar period. They were supported by the Comintern. In 1934, the Comintern issued a special resolution in which for the first time directions were provided for recognising the existence of a separate Macedonian nation and Macedonian language.
World War II
During World War II, Yugoslavia was occupied by the Axis powers from 1941 to 1945. The Vardar Banovina was divided between Bulgaria and Italian-occupied Albania. Bulgarian Action Committees were established to prepare the region for the new Bulgarian administration and army. The committees were mostly formed by former members of IMRO and Macedonian Youth Secret Revolutionary Organization (MYSRO, but some IMRO (United) former members also participated.
As leader of the Vardar Macedonian communists, Metodi Shatorov ("Sharlo") switched from the Yugoslav Communist Party to the Bulgarian Communist Party and refused to start military action against the Bulgarian Army. The Bulgarian authorities, under German pressure, were responsible for the round-up and deportation of over 7,000 Jews in Skopje and Bitola. Harsh rule by the occupying forces encouraged many Vardar Macedonians to support the Communist Partisan resistance movement of Josip Broz Tito after 1943, and the National Liberation War ensued.
In Vardar Macedonia, after the Bulgarian coup d'état of 1944, the Bulgarian troops, surrounded by German forces, fought their way back to the old borders of Bulgaria. Under the leadership of the new Bulgarian pro-Soviet government, four armies, 455,000 strong in total, were mobilised and reorganised. Most of them re-entered occupied Yugoslavia in early October 1944 and moved from Sofia to Niš, Skopje and Pristina with the strategic task of blocking the German forces withdrawing from Greece. The Bulgarian army would reach the Alps in Austria, participating in the expulsion of the Germans to the west, through Yugoslavia and Hungary.
Compelled by the Soviet Union with a view towards the creation of a large South Slav Federation, in 1946 the new Communist government, led by Georgi Dimitrov, agreed to give Bulgarian Macedonia to a United Macedonia. With the Bled agreement, in 1947 Bulgaria formally confirmed the envisioned unification of the Macedonian region, but postponed this act until after the formation of the future Federation. It was the first time it accepted the existence of a separate Macedonian ethnicity and language. After the Tito–Stalin split the region of Pirin Macedonia remained part of Bulgaria and later the Bulgarian Communist Party revised its view of the existence of a separate Macedonian nation and language.
Socialist Yugoslavia
In December 1944, the Anti-fascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM) proclaimed the People's Republic of Macedonia as part of the People's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. ASNOM remained an acting government until the end of the war. The Macedonian alphabet was codified by linguists of ASNOM, who based their alphabet on the phonetic alphabet of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić and the principles of Krste Petkov Misirkov. During the civil war in Greece (1946–1949), Macedonian communist insurgents supported the Greek communists. Many refugees fled to the Socialist Republic of Macedonia from there. The state removed "Socialist" from its name in 1991 when it peacefully seceded from Yugoslavia.
The new republic became one of the six republics of the Yugoslav federation. Following the federation's renaming as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1963, the People's Republic of Macedonia was likewise renamed the Socialist Republic of Macedonia.
Declaration of independence
North Macedonia officially celebrates 8 September 1991 as Independence day (Macedonian: Ден на независноста, Den na nezavisnosta), with regard to the referendum endorsing independence from Yugoslavia. The anniversary of the start of the Ilinden Uprising (St. Elijah's Day) on 2 August is also widely celebrated on an official level as the Day of the Republic.
Robert Badinter, as the head of the Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on Yugoslavia, recommended EC recognition in January 1992. On 15 January 1992, Bulgaria was the first country to recognise the independence of the republic.
Macedonia remained at peace through the Yugoslav Wars of the early 1990s. A few very minor changes to its border with Yugoslavia were agreed upon to resolve problems with the demarcation line between the two countries. It was seriously destabilised by the Kosovo War in 1999, when an estimated 360,000 ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo took refuge in the country. They departed shortly after the war, and Albanian nationalists on both sides of the border took up arms soon after in pursuit of autonomy or independence for the Albanian-populated areas of Macedonia.
21st century
2001 insurgency
A conflict took place between the government and ethnic Albanian insurgents, mostly in the north and west of the country, between February and August 2001. The war ended with the intervention of a NATO ceasefire monitoring force. Under the terms of the Ohrid Agreement, the government agreed to devolve greater political power and cultural recognition to the Albanian minority. The Albanian side agreed to abandon separatist demands and to recognise all Macedonian institutions fully. In addition, according to this accord, the NLA were to disarm and hand over their weapons to a NATO force. However the Macedonian security forces had two more armed confrontations with Albanian militant groups, in 2007 and 2015 respectively.
Inter-ethnic tensions flared in Macedonia in 2012, with incidents of violence between ethnic Albanians and Macedonians. In April 2017, about 200 protesters - reportedly mostly from the conservative VMRO-DPMNE party, stormed the Macedonian Parliament in response to the election of Talat Xhaferi, an ethnic Albanian and former National Liberation Army commander during the 2001 conflict, as the Speaker of the Assembly.
Antiquisation
Upon its coming to power in 2006, but especially since the country's non-invitation to NATO in 2008, the VMRO-DPMNE government pursued a policy of "Antiquisation" ("Antikvizatzija") as a way of putting pressure on Greece as well as for the purposes of domestic identity-building. Statues of Alexander the Great and Philip of Macedon have been erected in several cities across the country. Additionally, many pieces of public infrastructure, such as airports, highways, and stadiums were renamed after Alexander and Philip. These actions were seen as deliberate provocations in neighbouring Greece, exacerbating the dispute and further stalling the country's EU and NATO applications. The policy has also attracted criticism domestically, as well as from EU diplomats, and, following the Prespa agreement, it has been partly reversed after 2016 by the new SDSM government of North Macedonia. Moreover, per Prespa agreement both countries have acknowledged that their respective understanding of the terms "Macedonia" and "Macedonian" refers to a different historical context and cultural heritage.