Demographic history of Macedonia

For the demographics of the Republic of Macedonia, see Demographics of the Republic of Macedonia.

Early history

Macedonia is known to have been inhabited since Paleolithic times. Early inhabitants of the region were the Pelasgians and later Thracians and Illyrians. Thracians in early times occupied mainly the eastern parts of Macedonia (Mygdonia, Crestonia, Bisaltia) but were also present in Eordaia and Pieria. Illyrians once occupied many parts of west Macedonia. The ancient Macedonians established their kingdom in the southern extremities of the region but would later expand into other parts of Macedonia.

Paionia was in ancient region, later kingdom, the exact boundaries of which are obscure. In the time of king Philip II of Macedon, Paionia covered most of what is now the Republic of Macedonia, and was located immediately north of ancient Macedon and south of Dardania (Europe). In East was the Odrysian kingdom of the Thracians, and in West the Illyrian kingdom.

The Ancient Macedonians

Main article: Ancient Macedonians

According to ancient Greek mythology, Macedon - ancient Greek ΜΑΚΕΔΩΝ (Makedōn), poetic ΜΑΚΗΔΩΝ (Makēdōn) - was the name of the first phylarch (tribal chief) of the ΜΑΚΕΔΟΝΕΣ (Makedónes). The only surviving historical reference on the ethnic origin of the Macedonians comes from the Greek historian Herodotus, who in his Histories states that the Dorian tribes passed into the area of the Pindus mountains, and were known as Makednoi (Macedonians). These Macedonians seem to have been left behind during the great Dorian invasion (Histories 1.56.1). The region of Macedonia (Gr. ΜΑΚΕΔΟΝΙΑ) most likely took its name from this tribe, which according to Herodotus was called Makednoi (ΜΑΚΕΔΝΟΙ). The word "Makednos" derives from the Doric Greek word ΜΑΚΟΣ - "makos" (Attic form ΜΗΚΟΣ - "mékos"), which is Greek for "length". This theory seems to be in agreement with Herodotus' records. According to scholars Macedonians took this name either because they were physically tall, or because they settled in the mountains. The latter definition would translate "Macedonian" as "Highlander".

Most academics take the view that the ancient Macedonians probably spoke either a language that was an idiom of the North-Western Greek dialect group (related to Doric and Aeolic), or a language very closely related to Greek which would form a Graeco-Macedonian or Hellenic branch; others such as Eugene Borza reach the conclusion that there is insufficient evidence on which to base a conclusion as to whether the original language of the Macedonians was a form of Greek or not. In any case, even if the ancient Macedonians were originally not Hellenic or part of a Graeco-Macedonian branch, but a different Thraco-Illyrian ethnos, they would be universally considered Hellenes after the reign of Alexander the Great. The controversy over whether the Macedonians were originally Greek or not is caused mainly by contradictory ancient accounts, but also due to the peculiar features of some (if not a few) Macedonians words, though most words are consistent with Greek (see Ancient Macedonian language). Some scholars view the Pella katadesmos, written in a form of Doric Greek, as the first discovered Macedonian text. The vast majority of Macedonian names on inscriptions and coinage are Greek and conform to the Doric Greek dialect morphology.

Before the reign of Alexander I, father of Perdiccas II, the ancient Macedonians lived mostly on lands adjacent to the Haliakmon. The Upper Macedonian lands that were added to the Kingdom by Phillip II, were mainly inhabited by Paionians. Alexander is credited for having added to Macedon many of the lands that would become part of the core Macedonian territory: Pieria, Bottiaia, Mygdonia, and Eordaia (Thuc. 2.99). Anthemus, Crestonia, and Bisaltia also seem to have been added during his reign (Thuc. 2.99). Most of these lands were previously inhabited by Thracian tribes, and Thucydides records how the Thracians were pushed to the mountains when the Macedonians acquired them.

Generations after Alexander, Philip II of Macedon would add new lands to Macedon, and also reduce neighbouring powers such as the Illyrians and Paionians to semi-autonomous peoples. In Philip's time, Macedonians expanded and settled in many of the new adjoining territories, and Thrace up to the Nestus was colonized by Macedonian settlers. Strabo however testifies that the bulk of the population inhabiting in Upper Macedonia remained of Thraco-Illyrian stock. Philip's son, Alexander the Great, extended Macedonian power over key Greek city-states, and his campaigns, both local and abroad, would make the Macedonian power supreme from Greece, to Persia, Egypt, and the edge of India.

During this period there ware repeated barbaric invasions of the Balkans by Celts.

Roman Macedonia

After the defeat of Andriscus in 148 BC, Macedonia officially became a province of the Roman Empire in 146 BC. Hellenization of the non-Greek population was not yet complete in 146 BC, and many of the Thracian and Illyrian tribes had preserved their languages. It is also possible that the ancient Macedonian tongue was still spoken, alongside Koine, the common Greek language of the Hellenistic era. From an early period, the Roman province of Macedonia included Epirus, Thessaly, parts of Thrace and Illyria, thus making the region of Macedonia permanently lose connection to its ancient borders, and now including various inhabitants. According to accounts of Livy, by the 3rd century Macedonians had adopted a purely Greek ethnic identity.

Byzantine Macedonia

As the Greek state of Byzantium gradually emerged as a successor state to the Roman Empire, Macedonia became one of its most important provinces as it was close to the Empire's capital (Constantinople) and included its second largest city (Thessaloniki). According to Byzantine maps that were recorded by Ernest Honigmann, by the 6th century AD there were two provinces carrying the name "Macedonia" in the Empire's borders:

• Macedonia A, which corresponded to the geographical borders of ancient Macedon (approximately equivalent to today's Greek Macedonia);
• Macedonia B, which corresponded to former barbaric regions that were included in Macedonia during Hellenistic and Roman times (approximately equivalent to parts of today's Southern Republic of Macedonia, Eastern Albania and Western Bulgaria).

Macedonia was ravaged several times in the 4th and the 5th century by desolating onslaughts of Visigoths, Huns and Vandals. These did little to change its ethnic composition (the region being almost completely Hellenized by that time) but left much of the region depopulated.

Slavic, Bulgar and Avar invasions

Main article: South Slavs

The Slavs took advantage of the desolation left by the nomadic tribes and in the 6th century settled the Balkan Peninsula. Aided by the Avars and the Bulgars the Slavic tribes started in the 6th century a gradual invasion into the Byzantine lands of Byzantium. They invaded Macedonia and reached as far south as Thessaly and the Peloponnese, settling in isolated regions that were called by the Byzantines Sclavinias, until they were gradually pacified. Many Slavs came to serve as soldiers in Byzantine armies and settled in other parts of the empire. Many among the Romanised and Hellenised Paionian, Illyrian and Thracian population of Macedonia were assimilated by the Slavs, but pockets of tribes that fled to the mountains remained independent.. A number of scholars today consider that present-day Aromanians (Vlachs), Sarakatsani and Albanians originate from this mountainous population, while mainly Romanian and Greek scholars favor a Dacian, Moesian and Greek origin. The interaction between Romanised and non-Romanised indigenous peoples and the Slavs resulted in linguistic similarities which are reflected in modern Bulgarian, Albanian, Romanian and Macedonian, all of them members of the Balkan linguistic union. The Slavs occupied also the hinterland of Thessaloniki launching consecutive attacks on the city in 584, 586, 609, 620, and 622 AD, however never taking it. The Slavs were often joined in their onslaughts by detachments of Avars, but the Avars did not form any lasting settlements in the region. A branch of the Bulgars led by khan Kuber, however, settled western Macedonia and eastern Albania around 680 AD and also engaged in attacks on Byzantium together with the Slavs. By this time, the whole Macedonia region was inhabited by a few different ethnicities, with the Slavs being the overall majority , while Greek dominated along the Aegean coast (see below maps).

At the beginning of the 9th century, the Slavic kingdom of Bulgaria conquered Northern Byzantine lands, including Macedonia B and part of Macedonia A. Those regions remained under Bulgarian rule for two centuries, until conquest of Bulgaria by the Byzantine Emperor of the Macedonian dynasty Basil II (nicknamed the Bulgar-slayer) in 1018. In the 11th and the 12th century, the first mention was made of two ethnic groups just off the borders of Macedonia: Arvanites in modern Albania and Vlachs (Aromanians) in Thessaly and Pindus. Modern historians are divided as to whether the Albanians came to the area then (from Dacia or Moesia) or originated from the native non-Romanized Thracian or Illyrian populations.

Also in the 11th century Byzantium settled several tens of thousand Turkic Christians from Asia Minor, referred to as "Vardariotes", along the lower course of the Vardar. Colonies of other Turkic tribes such as Uzes, Petchenegs, and Cumans were also introduced at various periods from the 11th to the 13th century. All these were eventually Hellenized or Bulgarized. Roma, migrating from north India reached the Balkans, including Macedonia, around the 14th century with some of them settling there. There were successive waves of Roma immigration in the 15th and the 16th century, too.

In the 13th and the 14th century, Macedonia was contested by the Byzantine Empire, the Latin Empire, Bulgaria and Serbia but the frequent shift of borders did not result in any major population changes. In 1345, it was conquered outright by the Serbian empire of Czar Stefan Dusan, who proclaimed himself Emperor of Serbs, Albanians and Greeks. The empire would not survive his death.

Ottoman Rule

Muslims and Christians

The initial period of Ottoman rule led a depopulation of the plains and river valleys of Macedonia. The Christian population there was suppressed and escaped to the mountains. Ottoman colonists were largely brought from Asia Minor and settled parts of the region. Towns destroyed in Vardar Macedonia during the conquest were renewed, this time populated exclusively by Muslims. The Ottoman element in Macedonia was especially strong in the 17th and the 18th century with travellers defining the majority of the population, especially the urban one, as Muslim. The Ottoman population, however, sharply declined at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century on account of the incessant wars led by the Ottoman Empire, the low birth rate and the higher death toll of the frequent plague epidemics among Muslims than among Christians.

File:Ethnographic Map of Turkey in Europe.jpg

Ethnic composition of the central Balkans in 1870.

The Christian population was subjected to extensive processes of Islamization during the 17th and the 18th century, which affected chiefly the peasant Bulgarian population of several strategic mountain districts. Mass Islamization of Greeks also took place, though on a smaller scale in the southwestern Macedonian districts of Grevena and Kozani. The Ottoman-Habsburg war (1683-1699), the subsequent flight of a substantial part of the Serbian population in Kosovo to Austria and the reprisals and looting during the Ottoman counteroffensive led to an influx of Albanian Muslims (known as Turko-Albanians) to northern and northwestern Macedonia. Being in the position of power, the Turko-Albanians managed to push out their Christian neighbours and conquered additional territories in the 18th and the 19th century. The repeated plundering of the important Aromanian city of Moscopole and other Aromanian settlements in eastern Albania in the second half of the 18th century caused a large-scale Aromanian emigration to the Macedonian cities and towns, most notably to Bitola, Krushevo and Thessaloniki. Thessaloniki became also the home of a large Jewish population following Spain's expulsions of Jews after 1492. The Jews later formed small colonies in other Macedonian cities, most notably Bitola and Serres.

The Greek Idea

The rise of European nationalism in the 18th century led to the expansion of the Hellenic idea in Macedonia. Its main pillar throughout the centuries of Ottoman rule had been the indigenous Greek and Aromanian population of southern Macedonia. Under the influence of the Greek schools and the Patriarchate of Constantinople, however, it started to spread among the other orthodox subjects of the Empire as the urban Christian population of Slavic and Albanian origin started to view itself increasingly more as Greek. The Greek language became a symbol of civilization and a basic means of communication between non-Muslims. The process of Hellenization was additionally reinforced after the abolition of the Bulgarian Archbishopric of Ohrid in 1767. Though with a predominantly Greek clergy, the Archbishopric did not yield to the direct order of Constantinople and had autonomy in many vital domains. The poverty of the Christian peasantry and the lack of proper schooling in villages preserved the linguistic diversity of the Macedonian countryside and averted the possibility of complete Hellenization of the region. The Hellenic idea reached its peak during the Greek War of Independence (1821-1829) which received the active support of the Greek Macedonian population as part of their struggle for the resurrection of Greek statehood.

The independence of the Greek kingdom, however, dealt a nearly fatal blow to the Hellenic idea in Macedonia. The flight of the Macedonian intelligentsia to independent Greece and the mass closures of Greek schools by the Ottoman authorities weakened the Hellenic presence in the region for a century ahead, until the incorporation of southern Macedonia into Greece following the Balkan Wars in 1913.

The Bulgarian Idea

File:Bulgarian Church Congregation.jpg

Bulgarian Church Congregation in Ohrid, seal from 1869

The Slavs in Macedonia continued to call themselves Bulgarians during the first four centuries of Ottoman rule and were described as such by Ottoman historians like Evliya Celebi and Sa'aedin. The name meant, however, rather little in view of the political oppression by the Ottomans and the religious and cultural one by the Greek clergy. The Slavonic language was preserved as a cultural medium only in a handful of monasteries, to rise in terms of social status for the ordinary Bulgarian usually meant the process of Hellenisation.

File:Bulgarian Municipality Prilep.jpg

Bulgarian Municipality in Prilep, the 1860s

Although the first literary work in Modern Bulgarian, History of Slav-Bulgarians was written by a Macedonian-born monk, Paisius of Hilendar as early as 1762, it took almost a century for the Bulgarian idea to regain ascendancy in the region. The Bulgarian advance in Macedonia in the 19th century was aided by the numerical superiority of the Slavs after the decrease in the Turkish population, as well as by their improved economic status. The Slavs of Macedonia took active part in the struggle for independent Bulgarian Patriarchate and Bulgarian schools.

The representatives of the intelligentsia wrote in a language which they called Bulgarian and strove for a more even representation of the dialects spoken in Macedonia in formal Bulgarian. The autonomous Bulgarian Exarchate established in 1870 included northwestern Macedonia. After the overwhelming vote of the districts of Ohrid and Skopje, it grew to include the whole of present-day Vardar and Blagoevgrad province in 1874.

This process of Bulgarisation of Macedonia, however, was much less successful in southern Macedonia, which beside Slavs had compact Greek and Hellenised Aromanian population. The Hellenic idea and the Patriarchate of Constantinople preserved much of their earlier influence among the local Slavs and the arrival of the Bulgarian propaganda turned the region into a battlefield between Slavs owing allegiance to the Patriarchate and the Exarchate with division lines often separating family and kin.

Independent Point of View

Ethnographic Map of the Balkans by E. Stanford (1877)

Ethnographic Map of the Balkans by G. Lejean (1861)

The region was further identified as predominantly Greek by French F. Bianconi in 1877 and by Englishman Edward Stanford in 1877. He maintained that the urban population of Macedonia was entirely Greek, whereas the peasantry was of mixed, Bulgarian-Greek origin and had Greek consciousness but had not yet mastered the Greek language. European ethnographs and linguists until the Congress of Berlin usually regarded the language of the Slavic population of Macedonia as Bulgarian. French scholars Ami Boué in 1840 and Guillaume Lejean in 1861, Germans August Heinrich Rudolf Griesebach in 1841, J. Hahn in 1858 and 1863, August Heinrich Petermann in 1869 and Heinrich Kiepert in 1876, Slovak Pavel Jozef Safarik in 1842 and the Czechs J. Erben in 1868 and F. Brodaska in 1869, Englishmen James Wyld in 1877 and Georgina Muir Mackenzie and Adeline Paulina Irby in 1863, Serbians Davidovitch in 1848, Constant Desjardins in 1853 and Stefan I. Verković in 1860, Russians Viktor I. Grigorovič in 1848, Vinkenty Makushev and M.F. Mirkovitch in 1867, as well as Austrian Karl Sax in 1878 published ethnography or linguistic books, or travel notes, which defined the Slavic population of Macedonia as Bulgarian. Austrian doctor Josef Müller published travel notes in 1844 where he regarded the Slavic population of Macedonia as Serbian.

The predominant view of a Bulgarian character of the Slavs in Macedonia was reflected in the borders of future autonomous Bulgaria as drawn by the Constantinople Conference in 1876 and by the Treaty of San Stefano in 1878. Bulgaria according to the Constantinople Conference included present-day Vardar and Pirin Macedonia and excluded the predominantly “patriarchist” southern Macedonia. The Treaty of San Stefano, which reflected the maximum desired by Russian expansionist policy, gave Bulgaria the whole of Macedonia except Thessaloniki, the Chalcidice peninsula and the valley of the Aliakmon.

The Macedonian Question

The decision taken at the Congress of Berlin to leave Macedonia within the borders of the Ottoman Empire soon turned the region into the apple of discord between Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria. The ruthless propaganda war, the numerous outbursts of violence, and the inability of the Great powers to come up with a satisfactory solution earned the almost constant trouble in Macedonia the name “the Macedonian Question”. Unlike most disputed territories, Macedonia’s neighbouring countries contested not only the land but also the people, each regarding them as a subset of their own peoples.

Serbian Idea and Propaganda

Ethnographic Map of Macedonia: Point of View of the Serbs. Author: J.Cvijic

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 Macedonians as "Southern Serbs", Bosniaks as "Islamized Serbs", and parts of today's Croatian population (Dubrovnik, Dalmatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina) as "Catholic Serbs". Generally, the Macedonian Slavs were considered Serbs, although some more liberal scholars defined the southern portion of Macedonian people as independent and different from both Serbs and Bulgarians. But, the basic interests of Serbian state policy was directed to the liberation of Ottoman Bosnia and Herzegovina, while Macedonia and Vojvodina were left "to be liberated later on".

The Congress of Berlin of 1878, which granted Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austria-Hungary, 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 Croat astronomer and historian 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. The only Slavs in Macedonia which were referred to as Bulgarian were those living along the Strymon (Struma) and Nestos (Mesta) rivers, i.e. present-day Pirin Macedonia and parts of northeastern Greece. Cvijić further argued that the name Bugari (Bulgarians) used by the Slavic population of Macedonia to refer to themselves actually meant only ‘rayah’ – peasant Christians – and in no case affiliations to the Bulgarian ethnicity.

Greek Propaganda

It was established by the end of the 19th century that the majority of the population of central and Southern Macedonia (vilaets of Monastiri and Thessaloniki) were predominantly of ethnic Greek population, while the Northern parts of the region (vilaet of Skopje) were predominantly Slavic. Jews and Ottoman communities were scattered all over. Because of Macedonia's such polyethnic nature, the arguments which Greece used to promote its claim to the whole region were usually of historical and religious character. The Greeks consistently linked nationality to the allegiance to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Terms like and Aromanian origin which owed allegiance to the Patriarchate and had Greek schools. "Bulgarophone", "Albanophone" and "Vlachophone" Greeks were coined to describe the population of Slavic, Albanian or Vlach-speaking.

Like the Serbian and Bulgarian propaganda efforts, the Greek one initially also concentrated on education. Greek schools in Macedonia at the turn of the 20th century totalled 927 with 1,397 teachers and 57,607 pupils. As from the 1890s Greece also started sending armed guerilla groups to Macedonia (see Greek Struggle for Macedonia) especially after the death of Pavlos Melas, which fought the detachments of IMRO, terrorised the "Exarchist" Bulgarian population and allegedly committed a massacre of some 60 peasants in the village of Zagorichani near Kastoria in 1905.

The Greek cause predominated in southern Macedonia where it was supported by the native Greeks, by a substantial part of the Slavic population and by nearly all Aromanians. Support for the Greeks was much less pronounced in central Macedonia, coming from local Aromanians and only a fraction of the Slavs; in the northern parts of the region it was almost non-existent.

Bulgarian Propaganda

Ethnographic Map of Macedonia: Point of View of the Bulgarians. Author: V.Kuncov

The independence of Bulgaria in 1908 had the same effect on the Bulgarian idea in Macedonia as the independence of Greece to the Hellenic a century earlier. The consequences were closure of schools, expelling of priests of the Bulgarian Exarchate and emigration of the majority of the young Macedonian intelligentsia. This first emigration triggered a constant trickle of Macedonian-born refugees and emigrants to Bulgaria. Their number stood at ca. 100,000 by 1912.

The Bulgarian idea made a remarkable comeback in the 1890s with regard to both education and armed resistance. At the turn of the 20th century there were 785 Bulgarian schools in Macedonia with 1,250 teachers and 39,892 pupils. The Bulgarian Exarchate held jurisdiction over seven dioceses (Skopje, Debar, Ohrid, Bitola, Nevrokop, Veles and Strumica), i.e. the whole of Vardar and Pirin Macedonia and some of southern Macedonia. The Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committee (BMARC), which was founded in 1893 as the only guerilla organization established by locals, quickly developed a wide network of committees and agents turning into a "state within the state" in much of Macedonia. The organization changed its name on several occasions, settling to IMRO in 1920. IMRO fought not only against the Ottoman authorities, but also against the pro-Serbian and pro-Greek parties in Macedonia, terrorising the population supporting them.

The failure of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising in 1903 signified a second weakening of the Bulgarian cause resulting in closure of schools and a new wave of emigration to Bulgaria. IMRO was also weakened and the number of Serbian and Greek guerilla groups in Macedonia substantially increased. The Exarchate lost the dioceses of Skopje and Debar to the Serbian Patriarchate in 1902 and 1910, respectively. Despite this, the Bulgarian cause preserved its dominant position in central and northern Macedonia and was also strong in southern Macedonia.

Slav Macedonian Propaganda

The Macedonian Slav idea in the mid 19th century was at its inception stage. One of the first preserved accounts is the article The Macedonian question by Petko Slavejkov published 18th January 1871 in the "Macedonia" newspaper in Constantinople. In it Slavejkov advocates that this movement, at that point of time, is almost ten years old.

In 1880 Gjorgi Pulevski published in Sofia Slognica Rechovska, an attempt at a grammar of the language of the Slavs who lived in Macedonia. Although he had no formal education, Pulevski published several other books, including tree dictionaries and a collection of Macedonian songs, customs, and holidays.

In 1888 Kuzman Shapkarev writes to Marin Drinov with regard to the usage of the words Macedonian and Bulgarian:

"But even stranger is the name Macedontsi, which was imposed on us only 10 to 15 years ago by outsiders, and not as something by our own intellectuals... Yet the people in Macedonia know nothing of that ancient name, reintroduced today with a cunning aim on the one hand and a stupid one on the other. They know the older word: Bugari, although mispronounced: they have even adopted it as peculiarly theirs, inapplicable to other Bulgarians".

The first significant manifestation of Slavic Macedonian nationalism was the book За Македонските Работи(Za Makedonckite Raboti - On Macedonian Matters, Sofia, 1903) by Krste Misirkov. In the book Misirkov advocated that the Slavs of Macedonia should take a separate way from the Bulgarians and the Bulgarian language. Misirkov considered that the term "Macedonian" should be used to define the whole Slavic population of Macedonia, obliterating the existing division between Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbians. The adoption of a separate "Macedonian language" was also advocated as a means of unification of the Slav Macedonians with Serbian, Bulgarian and Greek consciousness. On Macedonian Matters was written in the South Slavic dialect spoken in central Bitola-Prilep. This dialect was proposed by Misirkov as the basis for the future language, and, as Misirkov says, a dialect which is most different from all other neighboring languages (as the eastern dialect was too close to Bulgarian and the northern one too close to Serbian). Misirkov calls this language Macedonian.

While Misirkov talked about the Macedonian consciousness and the Macedonian language as a future goal, he described the wider region of Macedonia in the early 20th century as inhabited by Bulgarians, Greeks, Serbs, Turks, Albanians, Aromanians, and Jews. As regards to the Slav Macedonians themselves, Misirkov maintained that they had called themselves Bulgarians until the publication of the book and were always called Bulgarians by independent observers until 1878 when the Serbian views also started to get recognition.

Misirkov rejected the ideas in On Macedonian Matters later and turned into a staunch advocate of the Bulgarian cause - to return to the (Slav) Macedonian idea again in the 1920s. The ideas of Misirkov, Pulevski and other ethnic Macedonian Slavs remained largely unnoticed until the 1940s when they were adopted by the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia influencing the codification of the Macedonian language.

Claims of present-day historians from the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia that the "Autonomists" in IMRO defended a Macedonian position are largely ungrounded as IMRO regarded itself and was regarded - by the Ottoman authorities, the Greek guerrilla groups, the contemporary press in Europe and even by Misirkov - as an exclusively Bulgarian organization. The present-day historians from the Republic of Macedonia claim that there were two IMRO organizations - a Macedonian one and a vrhovistic one, which declared as a Bulgarian organization.

Romanian Propaganda

Attempts at a Romanian propaganda among the Aromanian population of Macedonia began as early as 1855. The first Romanian school was, however, established as late as 1886. The total number of schools grew to ca. 40 at the beginning of the 20th century. Though the Romanian propaganda made some success in Bitola, Krushevo, the Aromanian villages in the districts of Bitola and Ohrid and even among some Slavs, the majority of the Macedonian Aromanians remained advocates of Hellenism.

Independent Point of View

Distribution of races in the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor, Historical Atlas by William R. Shepherd, New York (1923)

Distribution of races in the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor in 1922, Racial Map Of Europe by Hammond & Co.

Independent sources in Europe between 1878 and 1918 generally tended to view the Slavic population of Macedonia in two ways: as Bulgarians and as Macedonian Slavs.

German scholar Gustav Weigand was one of the most prominent representatives of the first trend with the books Ethnography of Macedonia (1924, written 1919) and partially with The Aromanians (1905). The author described all ethnic groups living in Macedonia, showed empirically the close connection between the western Bulgarian dialects and the Macedonian dialects and defined the latter as Bulgarian. The International Commission constituted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1913 to inquire into causes and conduct of the Balkan Wars also talked about the Slavs of Macedonia as about Bulgarians in its report published in 1914. The Commission had eight members from Great Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia and the United States.

The term "Macedonian Slavs" was used by scholars and publicists in three general meanings:

• as a politically convenient term to define the Slavs of Macedonia without offending Serbian and Bulgarian nationalism;
• as a distinct group of Slavs different from both Serbs and Bulgarians, yet closer to the Bulgarians and having predominantly Bulgarian ethnical and political affinities;
• as a distinct group of Slavs different from both Serbs and Bulgarians having no developed national consciousness and no fast ethnical and political affinities (the definition of Cvijic).

An instance of the use of the first meaning of the term was, for example, the ethnographic map of the Slavic peoples published in (1890) by Russian scholar Zarjanko, which identified the Slavs of Macedonia as Bulgarians. Following an official protest from Serbia the map was later reprinted identifying them under the politically correct name "Macedonian Slavs".

The term was used in a completely different sense by British journalist Henry Brailsford in Macedonia, its races and their future (1906). The book contains Brailford's impressions from a five-month stay in Macedonia shortly after the suppression of the Ilinden Uprising and represents an ethnographic report. Brailford defines the dialect of Macedonia as neither Serbian, nor Bulgarian, yet closer to the second one. An opinion is delivered that any Slavic nation could "win" Macedonia if it is to use the needed tact and resources, yet it is claimed that the Bulgarians have already done that. Brailsford uses synonymously the terms "Macedonian Slavs" and "Bulgarians", the "Slavic language" and the "Bulgarian language". The chapter on the Macedonians Slavs/the Bulgarians is titled the "Bulgarian movement", the IMRO activists are called "bulgarophile Macedonians".

The third use of the term can be noted among scholars from the allied countries (above all France and the United Kingdom) after 1915 and is roughly equal to the definition given by Cvijic (see above).

Development of the name Macedonian Slavs

The name "Macedonian Slavs" started to appear in publications at the end of the 1880s and the beginning of the 1890s. Though the successes of the Serbian propaganda effort had proved that the Slavic population of Macedonia was not only Bulgarian, they still failed to convince that this population was, in its turn, Serbian. Rarely used until the end of the 19th century compared to ‘Bulgarians’, the name ‘Macedonian Slavs’ served more to conceal rather than define the national character of the population of Macedonia. Scholars resorted to it usually as a result of Serbian pressure or used it as a general name for the Slavs inhabiting Macedonia regardless of their ethnic affinities.

However, by the beginning of the 20th century, the continued Serbian propaganda effort and especially the work of Cvijic had managed to firmly entrench the concept of the Macedonian Slavs in European public opinion and the name was used almost as frequently as ‘Bulgarians’. Even pro-Bulgarian researchers such as H. Brailsford and N. Forbes argued that the Macedonian Slavs differed from both Bulgarians and Serbs. Practically all scholars before 1915, however, including strongly pro-Serbian ones such as R.W. Seton-Watson, admitted that the affinities of the majority of them lied with the Bulgarian cause and the Bulgarians and classified them as such.

Bulgaria's entry into World War I on the side of the Central Powers signified a dramatic shift in the way European public opinion viewed the Slavic population of Macedonia. For the Central Powers the Slavs of Macedonia became nothing but Bulgarians, whereas for the Allies they turned into anything else but Bulgarians. The ultimate victory of the Allies in 1918 led to the victory of the vision of the Slavic population of Macedonia as of Macedonian Slavs, an amorphous Slavic mass without a developed national consciousness.

During the 1930's the Comintern developed a new policy for the Balkans. It was published a Resolution about the "creation" of Macedonian nation. The text of this document was prepared in the period December 20, 1933 – January 7, 1934, by the Balkan Secretariat of the Comintern. It was accepted by the Political Secretariat in Moscow on January 11, 1934, and approved by the Executive Committee of the Comintern. The Resolution was published for the first time in the April issue of Makedonsko Delo under the title ‘The Situation in Macedonia and the Tasks of IMRO (United)’.

The Missing National Consciousness

What stood behind the difficulties to properly define the nationality of the Slavic population of Macedonia was the apparent levity with which this population regarded it. Nationality in early 20th century Macedonia was a matter of political convictions and financial benefits, of what was considered politically correct at the specific time and of which armed guerrilla group happened to visit the respondent's home last. The process of Hellenization at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century affected only a limited stratum of the population, the Bulgarian Revival in the middle of the 19th century was too short to form a solid Bulgarian consciousness, the financial benefits given by the Serbian propaganda were too tempting to be declined. It was not a rare occurrence for whole villages to switch their nationality from Greek to Bulgarian and then to Serbian within a few years or to be Bulgarian in the presence of a Bulgarian commercial agent and Serbian in the presence of a Serbian consul. On several occasions peasants were reported to have answered in the affirmative when asked if they were Bulgarians and again in the affirmative when asked if they were Serbs. Though this certainly cannot be valid for the whole population, many Russian and Western diplomats and travelers defined Macedonians as lacking a "proper" national consciousness.

Statistical data

It should be noted that none of the data can flawlessly reflect reality as each source has used its own criteria. The data depends on the researcher's views concerning the definitive factor of "ethnicity", which in this case varies between language, religion, and personal ethnic consciousness. Another reason of its questionable reliability, is the fact that each research is conducted on a geographical region of variable borders. In that respect, Greeks restricted the borders of Macedonia to the geographical region of Classical and Ottoman times, while most Slavs (including Serbs and Bulgars) had doubled its borders in order to include a great number of Slavic speaking populations.

Ottoman census of Hilmi Pasha (1904)

Region	Greeks	Bulgarians
1. Vilaeti of Thessaloniki	373,227	207,317
2. Vilaeti of Monastiri	261,283	178,412
3. Santzaki of Scopje	13,452	172,735

Rival statistical data

Name	Nationality	Greeks	Bulgarians	Serbs	Remarks
1. Spiridon Goptchevitch	Serbia	201,140	57,600	2,048,320	Refers to Macedonia and Old Serbia (Kosovo and Sanjak)
2. Cleanthes Nicolaides	Greece	454,700	656,300	576,600	---
3. Vasil Kantchoff	Bulgaria	225,152	1,184,036	700	---
4. M. Brancoff	Bulgaria	190,047	1,172,136	---	---

Todor Simovski, writing in 1972, estimated the population of the area as slightly over one million people, of which more than 360,000 were Slavs – whose allegiance was claimed by Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian nationalists – and just over 250,000 were Greeks. The remaining population was principally composed of Albanians, Jews, Roma, Turks and Vlachs.

Encyclopaedia Britannica

The 1911 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica gave the following statistical estimates about the population of Macedonia:

• Bulgarians (described in encyclopaedia as "Slavs, the bulk of which is regarded by almost all independent sources as Bulgarians", a statement referring to the controversy between Bulgaria and Serbia as to the national affinities of the Slavs of Macedonia): ca. 1,150,000, whereof, 1,000,000 Orthodox and 150,000 Muslims (the so-called Pomaks)
• Turks: ca. 500,000 (Muslims)
• Greeks: ca. 250,000, whereof ca. 240,000 Orthodox and 14,000 Muslims
• Albanians: ca. 120,000, whereof 10,000 Orthodox and 110,000 Muslims
• Vlachs: ca. 90,000 Orthodox and 3,000 Muslims
• Jews: ca. 75,000
• Roma: ca. 50,000, whereof 35,000 Orthodox and 15,000 Muslims

In total 1,300,000 Christians (almost exclusively Orthodox), 800,000 Muslims, 75,000 Jews, a total population of ca. 2,200,000 for the whole of Macedonia.

It needs to be taken into account that a great part of the Slavic-speaking population in southern Macedonia (that is mentioned above as Bulgarian) regarded itself as ethnically Greek (Rum) which had lost its mother language over the years, and a smaller percentage, mostly in northern Macedonia, as Serbian. All Muslims (except the Albanians) tended to view themselves and were viewed as Turks, irrespective of their mother tongue.

Sample statistical data from neutral sources

The following data reflects the population of the wider reason of Macedonia as it was defined by Serbs and Bulgarians (Aegean, Vardar and Pirin), which was significantly larger that the traditional region known to the Greeks.

Name	Nationality	Population total	Bulgarians	Greeks	Turks	Albanians	Remarks
1. Prof. G. Wiegland - Die Nationalen Bestrebungen der Balkansvölker. Leipzig 1898	Germany	2,275,000	1,200,000	220,000	695,000	---	All Muslims incl. Albanians under Turks
2. Official Turkish Statistic Ethnicity of Macedonia Philippopoli 1881	Turkey	754,353	500,554	22,892	185,535	---	All Muslims incl. Albanians under Turks
3. Journal "Le Temps" Paris 1905	France	2,782,000	1,200,000	270,000	410,000	600,000	Refers to Macedonia and Old Serbia (Kosovo and Sanjak)
4. Robert Pelletier - La verite sur la Bulgarie. Paris 1913	France	1,437,000	1,172,000	190,000	---	3,036	only Christian population
5. Leon Dominian - The frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe. New York 1917	USA	1,438,084	1,172,136	190,047	---	---	Only Christian population
6. Richard von Mach - Der Machtbereich des bulgarischen Exarchats in der Türkei. Leipzig - Neuchatel, 1906	Germany	1,334,827	1,166,070	95,005	---	6,036	Only Christian population
7. Prince Tcherkasky 1877	Russia	1,771,220	872,700	124,250	516,220	---	All Muslims incl. Albanians under Turks
8. Stepan Verkovitch 1889	Serbia	1,949,043	1,317,131	222,740	240,264	78,790	---
9. Von der Golts - "Balkanwirren und ihre grunde" (1904)	Germany	---	266,000	580,000	730,000	---	All Muslims incl. Albanians under Turks
10. Amadore Virgilli "La questiona roma rumeliota" (1907)	Italy	---	341,000	642,000	646,000	---	All Muslims incl. Albanians under Turks; Refers only to the vilyets of Thessaloniki and Monastir

After the great population exchanges of the 1920s, 380,000 Turks left Greece and 538,253 Greeks came to Macedonia from Asia Minor. After the signing of the treaty of Neuilly in 1919, Greece and Bulgaria agreed on a population exchange on the remaining Bulgarian minority in Macedonia. In the same year some 66,000 Bulgarians and other Slavophones left to Bulgaria and Serbia, while 58709 Greeks entered Greece from Bulgaria

Statistical data of Aegean Greek Macedonia

In 1913,Greek 43%,Muslims 40 % , Bulgarian 10 % In 1926 Greeks 88.8% , Bulgarians(slavophones) 5% League of Nations

20th Century

The Balkan Wars (1912-1913) and World War I (1914-1918) left Macedonia divided between Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Albania and resulted in significant changes in its ethnic composition.

Ethnic map of the Balkans prior to the First Balkan War.

Greece

After the treaty of Bucharest, some 51% of the modern region that was known as Macedonia was won by the Greek state (also known as Aegean or Greek Macedonia). This was the only part of Macedonia that Greece was directly interested in. Greeks regarded this land as the only true region of Macedonia as it geographically corresponded to ancient Macedon and contained an ethnically Greek majority of population. Bulgarian and other non-Greek schools in southern (Aegean) Macedonia were closed and Bulgarian teachers and priests were deported as early as the First Balkan War simultaneous to deportation of Greeks from Bulgaria. The bulk of the Slavic population of southeastern Macedonia fled to Bulgaria during the Second Balkan War or was resettled there in the 1920s by virtue of a population exchange agreement. The Slavic minority in Greek Macedonia, who were referred to by the Greek authorities as “Slavomacedonians”, “Slavophone Greeks” and “Bulgarisants”, were subjected to a gradual assimilation by the Greek majority. Their numbers were reduced by a large-scale emigration to North America in the 1920s and the 1930s and to Eastern Europe and Yugoslavia following the Greek Civil War (1944-1949). At the same time a number of Macedonian Greeks from Monastiri (modern Bitola) entered Greece.

The 1923 Compulsory population exchange between Greece and Turkey led to a radical change in the ethnic composition of Greek Macedonia. Some 380,000 Turks and other Muslims left the region and were replaced by 538,253 Greeks from Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace.

Greece was attacked and occupied by Nazi-led Axis during World War II. By the beginning of 1941 the whole of Greece was under a tripartite German, Italian and Bulgarian occupation. The Bulgarians were permitted to occupy western Thrace and parts of Macedonia where they persecuted and committed massacres and other atrocities against the Greek population. The once thriving Jewish community of Thessaloniki was decimated by the Nazis, who deported 60,000 of the city's Jews to the death camps of Germany and German-occupied Poland. Large Jewish populations in the Bulgarian occupied zone were deported by the Bulgarian army and had an equal death rate to the German zone.

The present number of the Slavophones in Greece has been subject to much speculation with varying numbers. As Greece does not hold census based on self-determination and mother tongue, no official data is available. It should be noted, however, that the official Macedonian Slav party in Greece receives at an average only 1000 votes. For more information about the region and its population see Greek Macedonia.

Serbia and Yugoslavia

After the Balkan Wars (1913-1914) the Slavs in Serbian (Vardar) Macedonia were regarded as southern Serbs and the language they spoke a southern Serbian dialect. The Bulgarian, Greek and Romanian schools were closed, the Bulgarian priests and all non-Serbian teachers were expelled. Bulgarian surname endings '-ov/-ev' were replaced with the typically Serbian ending '-ich' and the population which considered itself Bulgarian was heavily persecuted. The policy of Serbianization in the 1920s and 1930s clashed with popular pro-Bulgarian sentiment stirred by IMRO detachments infiltrating from Bulgaria, whereas local communists favoured the path of self-determination suggested by the Yugoslav Communist Party in the 1924 May Manifesto.

Bulgarian troops were welcomed as liberators in 1941 but mistakes of the Bulgarian administration made a growing number of people resent their presence by 1944. The region received the status of a constituent republic within Yugoslavia and in 1945 a separate, Macedonian language was codified. The population was declared Macedonian, a nationality different from both Serbs and Bulgarians. The decision was politically motivated and aimed at weakening the position of Serbia within Yugoslavia and of Bulgaria with regard to Yugoslavia. Surnames were again changed to include the ending '-ski', which was to emphasise the unique nature of the Ethnic Macedonian population.

It may be only a matter of speculation whether the Macedonian Slavs of present-day Republic of Macedonia would have developed as a separate ethnic group had Macedonia been incorporated into a “Great Bulgarian” state in 1878 or 1913. The influence of the Serbian propaganda effort between 1881 and 1912 and the policy of intense Serbization in the interwar years, however, indisputably played a key role for severing of the ties of the Macedonian Slavs with the Bulgarians. Since 1945, the Macedonian Slavs of the Republic of Macedonia have demonstrated without any exception a strong and even aggressive at times Macedonian consciousness. Any ties with the Bulgarians have been denounced and the Bulgarian affinities of their national heroes from the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century have been fiercely denied, even in the face of fact. The quick success of the Ethnic Macedonian idea in the 1940s and the tenacity with which the Macedonian Slavs have held on to it throughout the second half of the 20th century indicates that the process of formation of Ethnic Macedonian consciousness had been well under way before World War II (contrary to Bulgarian and Greek claims, for more information see Macedonian language and Macedonia), to finally crystallize under the oppressive and ineffective Bulgarian administration between 1941 and 1944. For more current information about the population of Republic of Macedonia see Demographics of the Republic of Macedonia.

Bulgaria

Pirin Macedonia within Bulgaria

The Slavic population in Pirin Macedonia remained Bulgarian after 1913. IMRO was a “state within the state” in the region in the 1920s using it to launch attacks in the Serbian part of Macedonia. By that time IMRO had become a right-wing Bulgarian ultranationalist organization. In 1946 the population of Pirin Macedonia was declared Ethnic Macedonian, in anticipation of the future incorporation of the region into the Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and of the admission of Bulgaria into the Yugoslav Federation. The policy change was orchestrated by the Soviet Union and followed the official line of the Comintern on the Macedonian question. At the end of the 1950s the Communist party repealed its previous decision and adopted a position denying the existence of a “Macedonian” nation. The inconsistent Bulgarian policy has thrown most independent observers ever since into a state of confusion as to the real origin of the population in Bulgarian Macedonia.

After a brief upsurge of Ethnic Macedonian nationalism at the beginning of the 1990s, sometimes resulting in clashes between nationalist IMRO and Ethnic Macedonian separatist organization UMO Ilinden, the commotion has largely subsided in recent time and the Ethnic Macedonian idea has become strongly marginalized. A total of 3,100 people in the Blagoevgrad District declared themselves Macedonian in the 2001 census (0,9% of the population of the region).

Albania

The Slavic minority in Albania is concentrated in two regions, Mala Prespa northeast of Korçë, eastern Albania, and Golo Bardo south of the western Macedonian town of Debar. Albania has recognised a 5,000 strong Macedonian Slav minority in Mala Prespa. In Golo Brdo there are both a Bulgarian and a Macedonian organization. Each of them claims that the local Slavic population is Bulgarian/Macedonian. The population itself, which is predominantly Muslim, has, however, preferred to call itself Albanian in official censuses.

Modern times

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia officially celebrates 1991 with regard to the referendum endorsing independence from Yugoslavia, albeit legalizing participation in "future union of the former states of Yugoslavia".

During this period it has been claimed by Macedonian scholars that there exist large and oppressed ethnic Macedonian minorities in the region of Macedonia, located in neighboring states. Because of those claims, irredentist proposals are being made calling for the expansion of the borders of the FYROM to encompass the territories allegedly populated with ethnic Macedonians. The population of the neighboring regions is presented as "subdued" to the propaganda of the governments of those neighbouring countries, and in need their incorporation into a United Macedonia.

The supporters of these ideas, so called Macedonists generally ignore censi conducted in Albania, Bulgaria and Greece, which show minimal presence of ethnic Macedonians. They consider those censi flawed, without presenting evidence in support, and accusing the governments of neighboring countries of continued propaganda.

References

• The Balkans: Nationalism, War & the Great Powers - Misha Glenny
• Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition
• Banac, Ivo. (1984). The National Question in Yugoslavia. Origins, History, Politics. Cornell University Press: Ithaca/London University Press: Ithaca/London (for online version of relevant pages, click here)
• Boué, Ami. (1840). Le Turquie d’Europe. Paris: Arthus Bertrand.
• Brailsford, Henry Noel. (1906). Macedonia: Its Races and Their Future. London: Methuen & Co
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. (1914). Report of the International Commission To Inquire into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars. Washington: The Carnegie Endowment (from http://vmro[dot]150m.com/en/carnegie/
• Gopčević, Spiridon. (1889). Makedonien und Alt-Serbien. Wien: L. W. Seidel & Sohn. - Стара Србија и Македонија, превод: Милан Касумовић. Београд, 1890.
• Jezernik, Bozhidar. Macedonians: Conspicuous By Their Absence
• Misirkov, Krste P. (1903). Za makedonckite raboti. Sofia: Liberalni klub. (In Macedonian and English)
• The Emergence of Macedonian National Thought and the Formation of a National Programme (up to 1878) by Blaže Ristovski
• Kunčov, Vasil. (1900). Makedonija. Etnografija i statistika. Sofia: Državna pečatnica (Кънчов, В. 1900, Македония. Етнография и статистика. София: Държавна печатница).
• Lange-Akhund, Nadine. (1998). The Macedonian Question, 1893-1908 from Western Sources. Boulder, Colo. : New York.
• MacKenzie, Georgena Muir and Irby, I.P. (1971). Travels in the Slavonic Provinces of Turkey in Europe. New York, Arno Press.
• Poulton, Hugh. (1995). Who are the Macedonians? C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd., London
• Roudometoff, Victor. (2000). The Macedonian Question: Culture, Historiography, Politics. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs.
• Todor Simovski (1972). "The Balkan Wars and their Repercussions on the Ethnical Situation in Aegean Macedonia". Glasnik. XVI (3): 191. quoted in Poulton, Hugh. "Greece". In Second (ed.). Who Are the Macedonians?. Indiana University Press. p. 85. ISBN 0-253-21359-2..
• Weigand, Gustav. (1924). ETHNOGRAPHIE VON MAKEDONIEN, Geschichtlich-nationaler, spraechlich-statistischer Teil von Prof. Dr. Gustav Weigand, Leipzig, Friedrich Brandstetter.
• Wilkinson, H.R. (1951). Maps and Politics; a review of the ethnographic cartography of Macedonia, Liverpool University Press.
• Kuhn's Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung XXII (1874), Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

See also

• Macedon
• Macedonia (region), geographical region
• Macedonian, disambiguation between different groups
• Greek Macedonians
• Macedonism
• The Ten Lies of Macedonism
• Macedonia (terminology)
• United Macedonia