History of North Macedonia

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The history of North Macedonia deals with the events and developments on the territory of today's Republic of North Macedonia and also the events outside this area, which strongly influenced the changes there. For a long time the country was called Macedonia .

The region of Macedonia (or Macedonia) on the Balkan Peninsula is a geographical area with no clear delimitation. It was part of the Ottoman Empire from around the middle of the 14th century to the beginning of the 20th century and was divided into several provinces . The most important trading city in the region since the time of the Byzantine Empire was the city of Thessaloniki on the Aegean Sea .

Macedonian question in the 19th and early 20th centuries

Internal Christian administration of the Ottoman Empire

After the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the dissolution of the Byzantine Empire , Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror in 1454 confirmed the Patriarch of Constantinople as head of all Orthodox Christians in the empire. After further Ottoman conquests, the patriarch also presided over the Serbian and Bulgarian Orthodox Churches , which had to give up some of their autocephalous patriarchates and archbishoprics. The clergy of these non-Greek churches were appointed by the Patriarch in Constantinople, and the Patriarchate was also responsible for collecting and paying the protective tax that was specifically applicable to Orthodox subjects . This coexistence between Orthodox and Muslims made possible not only the physical but also the cultural survival of Orthodoxy in the Ottoman Empire.

The Greek and Armenian clergy were able to take precedence over the clerics of the Serbs, Bulgarians and Romanians , privileged by the Sultan . This created strong inner-Orthodox tensions. In 1767, under pressure from the Phanariotes, the Archdiocese of Ohrid and the Patriarchate of Peć were dissolved and the entire Orthodoxy in the Ottoman Empire was subordinated to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. This increased the influence of Greek culture and language on the Slavic-speaking peoples .

The Patriarchate of Constantinople owed its supremacy during the Ottoman era to the politically weighty fact that the Ottoman power did not have to fear the intervention of an Orthodox political power until the beginning of the 18th century. With the ongoing Russo-Ottoman wars , this position also deteriorated, and at the latest after the Russo-Ottoman War from 1768 to 1774 and the devastating Ottoman defeat, the peace of Küçük Kaynarca was agreed on July 21, 1774 , which, among other things, the Russian Empire as The protective power of all Orthodox in the Ottoman Empire dictated, analogous to France , which already held the same position for the Catholics in 1740 .

Bulgarian national movement

In the Macedonia region, two partially independent church hierarchies arose as a result of the “Bulgarian Rebirth”: the Bulgarian Catholic Church founded in 1860 and the Bulgarian Exarchate founded in 1870. The first went back to the Union of Kilkis (Bulgarian Kukush ) in 1859, in which French Lazarists took advantage of the local population's dissatisfaction with the Orthodox Phanariotic bishops and promised them a national church hierarchy. In 1861, Josif Sokolski was the first Catholic archbishop to be appointed. The resulting church saw itself as part of the Bulgarian national movement and had 30,000 to 60,000 believers.

For the Bulgarian Christians in the Ottoman Empire, after a Ferman (decree) by the Sultan , a Bulgarian Orthodox Church in the form of an exarchate was established in 1870 , which was no longer under the patronage of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Constantinople. A plebiscite was permitted for all places that were not mentioned by name in Ferman and wished to join the exarchate . When two-thirds of the Orthodox residents declared themselves to be part of the Bulgarian Exarchate, the village was placed under the jurisdiction of the renewed Bulgarian Church. Under pressure from the Patriarch of Constantinople, this mainly affected eparchies in Macedonia and Thrace , which were not mentioned in Ferman. In the next few years some of the Macedonian dioceses joined the exarchate after a referendum. Believers of the Bulgarian Catholic Church also joined the Orthodoxy. This process continued into the 1880s. In 1874, after a plebiscite, the first Bulgarian bishop of the Skopje eparchy was installed. With the formation of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, the second and penultimate period of the Bulgarian Revival ended.

The establishment of the exarchate made it possible for Bulgarians to occupy the bishopric , to hold services in the Bulgarian language and to establish a Bulgarian school system within the Ottoman Empire. Now a so-called Bulgarian-Greek church struggle broke out on the Balkan Peninsula - most strongly in the ethnically mixed regions of Macedonia and Thrace - over the confession of the Bulgarian “exarchate” or the Greek-dominated patriarchate in Constantinople. The ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, who did not recognize Ferman, declared the Bulgarian “exarchate” to be schismatic as early as 1872 .

The political conflict raged between the different schools that were run by the respective churches. At the height of the church dispute and the economic collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the various conflict potentials (political and spiritual independence, political autonomy etc.) erupted in a series of armed uprisings in the Bulgarian heartland in 1875/76. This ushered in the third and final period of the Bulgarian Revival. Even far away from the centers of the April uprising , revolutionary committees were founded in Macedonia in 1876, calling for struggle; for example in the village of Raslowzi to armed fighting and in the district of Raslog to mass arrests.

Those Christians in Macedonia who remained loyal to the patriarchate in Constantinople (especially Aromanians and Meglenorumans ) continued to support the Greek language and culture, while the majority of the Slavic-speaking people in the region supported the Bulgarian exarchate. It is controversial whether it was, as Bulgarian historians claim, a national uprising of the “Bulgarian” population against foreign rule. The number of locally isolated revolutionaries operating from Romanian abroad and their degree of organization was too small to have any influence on the population as a whole. Ultimately, the leaders of the April uprising were only able to organize a few hundred insurgents and were quickly defeated. According to the historian Björn Opfer, one can ultimately not speak of a “national liberation struggle” .

After the Russo-Ottoman War from 1877 to 1878 and the renewed Ottoman defeat, the preliminary peace of San Stefano between Russia and the Ottoman Empire of March 3, 1878 provided for a Greater Bulgarian state including Macedonia. Great Britain , France, the German Empire and the Danube Monarchy, however, successfully pushed for a correction of this preliminary peace treaty. At the Berlin Congress , Russia was unable to enforce its maximum demands on the Balkan Peninsula. A Bulgarian principality was created , which was under Russian influence, as well as the autonomous province of Eastern Rumelia under Ottoman administration and with Philippople as the capital. On September 6th, Jul. / September 18, 1885 greg. The Bulgarian principality in the north and the autonomous province of Eastern Rumelia united despite the results of the Berlin Congress. In 1893 the movement of the Bulgarian Macedonia-Adrianople Revolutionary Committee was established (later renamed the Inner Macedonian Revolutionary Organization IMRO, Bulgarian / Macedonian VMRO ).

In the 1890s the Bulgarian claim to Macedonia began to falter. Serbian and Greek priests and teachers vied, initially without great success, for the favor of the Macedonian population for the national turn they wanted . As a further alternative to the Bulgarian affiliation concept, the Inner Macedonian revolutionary movement, known as the “Inner Organization” with frequently changing names, represented an autonomous Macedonia within the framework of a Balkan Federation. The “Macedonian question” was no longer a matter of course for Bulgaria. Inner Macedonian particular interests made Sofia's road to "national unification" even more rocky.

The Greeks and Serbs were neutral towards the Ilinden uprising of the Slavic-speaking population in Macedonia and Thrace in August 1903 against Ottoman rule . At the end of the 19th century, the Greek and Serbian leadership had already taken the position that the Bulgarian-led guerrilla movement in the Macedonian region did not serve their own interests. From this point in time at the latest, the direct conflict between Greek, Serbian and Bulgarian nationalism and the development of the Greek ( Andartis ) and Serbian guerrilla movements ( Chetniks ) manifested itself .

After the bloody suppression of the uprising, the BMARK was unable to recover for a long time and fell on the defensive against its Greek and Serbian rivals. Today the Ilinden uprising is considered one of the key events of the Macedonian national conception of history. The “Macedonian question” became the most sensitive sub-question of the Oriental question . From 1903 to 1918, Macedonia, a strategically important region, was the geopolitical "weight bearing" and the "bone of contention" of the Balkans. In all of the armed conflicts during these years, the combatants on both sides consisted of both regular troops and paramilitaries , such as the Komitaji . In all cases, excessive violence against the civilian population was deliberately used as a weapon of war.

Greek national movement

The " Megali Idea " (Great Idea) was the motto of Greek nationalism in the 19th and early 20th centuries, which aimed at the unification of all parts of the Greek world in the universality of the term Hellenism . In 1844 Prime Minister Ioannis Kolettis formulated the foreign policy of the modern Greek nation-state with the aim of the state unification of all Greeks and the expansion of the nation-state, whose future capital was to be Constantinople, which was yet to be conquered . In this context it remained unclear whether the intention was to eliminate or to preserve the Ottoman Empire. So there was the peculiarity that the Greek state was viewed as a vicarious agent in the context of the Megali Idea under the motto The nation stands above the state .

On the Greek side, officers and intellectuals founded the secret society Ethnike Hetairia (National Society) in 1894 , whose fighters in Macedonia, especially between 1904 and 1908, waged a bloody guerrilla war ( Makedonikós agónas Μακεδονικ aberς αγώνας ), but also primarily against their Bulgarian authorities .

Problems of the Macedonian Nation Development

Until the middle of the 20th century, the ethno-national determination of the Christian-Orthodox majority of the Macedonian population was low.

Through the struggle to displace the Ottoman Empire (see Balkan Federation ) combined with the strengthening of the nationalism of the Balkan peoples, territorial claims arose with regard to Macedonia, which also included the local population. For Bulgaria, the greater part of the Slavic population of Macedonia was simply Bulgarian, for Serbia it was Serbs, for the Greeks it was “Konational”, who spoke a Slavic language due to a “historical error”. The Bulgarians claimed that the peasant inhabitants were Bulgarians because they spoke a dialect very similar to Bulgarian. The Serbs invoked similar folk customs, the Greeks pointed to the spread of the Greek Orthodox Church and that the Greeks had lived in the area since Alexander the Great . After 1890, parts of the educated upper class began to proclaim that there was a separate Macedonian-Slavic nation. Most Macedonians, however, only felt local ties to family, religion and the village.

Romanian schools for Aromanians and Megleno- Romanians in the Ottoman Empire (1886) as an example of the penetration of Macedonia by schools in neighboring countries

Oswald Spengler described a central factor in the hesitant nation-building of the residents of the region, the national-language school system operated by the neighboring nation-states in Ottoman Macedonia, "pointed but aptly" in 1922 in Der Untergang des Abendlandes :

“In Macedonia, Serbs, Bulgarians and Greeks founded Christian schools for the anti-Turkish population in the 19th century. If it happened that Serbian was being taught in a village, the next generation consisted of fanatical Serbs. The current strength of the "nations" is therefore only a consequence of the earlier school policy. "

The school systems created in this context were supplemented by schools for the Aromanians , which were supported from Romania. However, none of these “national” school networks was efficient or comprehensive in “winning” the anti-Turkish population. The ethno-national tabula rasa situation and the possibility of mobilization through church schools gave the states Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria, which are pushing for territorial expansion, the opportunity to "polish" the local population in their favor in order to underpin possible claims later.

Balkan Wars 1912/13 and First World War

Border changes due to the Balkan Wars

The Young Turkish Revolution of 1908/09 intensified the conflict between Greece, Serbia, Montenegro , Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. Until the Balkan Wars, the majority of the population in the region consisted of Christian Orthodox and Muslims . The Christian Orthodox split into supporters of the Greek-dominated Patriarchate of Constantinople and supporters of the Bulgarian Church.

During the First and Second Balkan Wars , those borders of Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia were drawn in the region that are almost identical to those of today. In the period 1912 to 1922, many Muslims had to leave the region. The “scorched earth” tactics and the systematic expulsion of certain ethnic groups from individual areas were characterized by a considerable degree of innovation in ethnopolitically motivated violence.

Bulgarian refugee column from Macedonia (1914)

After the Balkan Wars, the so-called Vardar Macedonia fell to Serbia. After the defeat of Bulgaria in the Second Balkan War and especially in the First World War , the Macedonian Bulgarians emigrated to Bulgaria. Over 80 percent of the refugees in the Bulgarian capital Sofia came from Vardar and Aegean Macedonia . Estimates for the year 1913 for the area of ​​Vardar-Macedonia assume a number of 90,000 Bulgarians, at that time around 10 percent of the total population.

Serbian-Yugoslav rule and the interwar period

Structure of Yugoslavia in Banovine 1929–1941

With the end of the First World War in 1918, the borders of the region hardly changed. The area of ​​today's Republic of North Macedonia remained an integral part of the Serbian kingdom. It was officially called Southern Serbia and the population was considered Southern Serbs. The Slavic residents of the region were now considered Serbs. From 1929 the area of ​​today's North Macedonia together with parts of southern Serbia administratively formed the province " Vardarska banovina ". The IMRO, which had its base of operations in Pirin-Macedonia, Bulgaria, existed underground. There the IMRO became the “state within the state” and in the course of the 1920s it became the “state above the state” Bulgaria. Their actions were now directed against the Serbs. The spectacular climax of the IMRO's struggle was the assassination attempt carried out jointly with the Croatian Ustasha on the Yugoslav King Alexander I on October 9, 1934 in Marseille . An estimated 4,200 Macedonians were killed by the IMRO between 1918 and 1934, compared to around 340 victims among the representatives of the Yugoslav state authority.

The Vardarska banovina in World War II

During the Second World War and the control of the Balkan Peninsula by the troops of the Axis powers , part of the Slavic-speaking minority, which was mainly based in northwest Greece, formed into militant groups with an "anti-Greek" orientation. These either fought on the side of the Axis powers or were shaped by communism . Even if the organizations pursued ideologically opposing goals, at the time both propagated the separation of Macedonian territory from Greece and its connection to Bulgaria or Yugoslavia.

Bulgaria relied on IMRO cadres for the occupation of Vardarska banovina, which in many places provided the mayors and other administrative staff. The Bulgarian occupation pursued purely national goals and did not care about economic policy in the "liberated" area. Therefore, in terms of its focus on the needs of the German war economy , the country resembled the Croatian Ustasha - and the Serbian rump state .

In contrast to the Bulgarian motherland, the Jews in the occupied territories were not saved from the Holocaust . 7,100 Jews, including 2,000 children, were deported from occupied Macedonia to the Treblinka extermination camp . Only 196 of them survived. From the end of August 1944, Bulgaria withdrew from the occupied territories of Yugoslavia.

After the conquest of Yugoslavia, the area around the mountains of Šar Planina and Jablanica in western Macedonia was added to the Italian protectorate of Greater Albania , which has been German since 1943 . On their retreat in 1944, German troops killed over 80 unarmed residents of the village of Radolišta (Ladorisht) in the Ladorisht massacre in "retaliation" for previous partisan attacks.

Socialist Republic of Macedonia

Foundation of the SJR Macedonia and Greek Civil War

Macedonia as a part of the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia

After the end of the Second World War, the civil war broke out in Greece in 1946 between the communist and the royalist-bourgeois camp. The fact that the communist army in Greece was made up not only of ethnic Greeks but also of members of the Slavic Macedonian minority added a national dimension to the civil war in addition to its overt ideological dimension. In addition, with the establishment of the Federal People's Republic of Macedonia within Yugoslavia in August 1944, the state institutionalization of Macedonism . The decision of the Yugoslav leadership to establish the sixth republic of the Yugoslav federation from the Yugoslav province of Vardarska Banovina and to pursue Macedonian nation building within this was based on both domestic and foreign policy considerations.

Period between 1949 and 1991 - Cold War

With the proclamation of the so-called Truman Doctrine (1947) and the subsequent intervention of the United States in the Greek Civil War, the conflict ended in 1949 with the defeat of the Communists. Around 120,000 people had to leave Greece and fled to the Eastern Bloc countries . About half of them were ethnically Greek and their repatriation in Greece did not begin until the mid-1980s. In the ideological confrontation between East and West, the ethnic regional conflicts of the Balkans were frozen for half a century . On July 26, 1963, Skopje was hit by a devastating earthquake that destroyed almost the entire city and claimed over 1,000 lives.

Republic of Macedonia

Independence and recognition

Today's Republic of North Macedonia
Flag of North Macedonia between 1992 and 1995 with the star of Vergina

After a referendum held on September 8, 1991, the Socialist Republic of Macedonia became the third republic of Yugoslavia to declare its independence. The first state to recognize Macedonia was its eastern neighbor Bulgaria. This happened on January 15, 1992. Nevertheless, there were disagreements with Greece and Bulgaria. In 1992 the Yugoslav People's Army withdrew peacefully, although they took their military equipment with them, so that the new state and its armed forces were armed only with small arms.

The name Macedonia - with regard to the Greek region of the same name Macedonia - and symbols such as the star of Vergina , is not recognized by the Greek side. Greece had no objection to independence. The star of Vergina flag was not recognized as a state symbol, because the symbol was only discovered in archaeological excavations in Greece in mid-1980 and correlates with Macedonia from ancient times. The choice of this symbol as part of the national flag and the renaming of the airport in the capital Skopje to Alexander the Great-Airport in 2007 are perceived by the Greek side as a provocation. A changed flag has been recognized as a state symbol by the United Nations since 1995 .

Greece sees the name Macedonia as historically unjustified for what is now North Macedonia, as the history of ancient Macedonia is part of Greek ancient history, and there were no Slavs in the region at the time. In addition, it is argued that much of what is now North Macedonia was never part of the historical region of Macedonia.

The then Republic of Macedonia argued that the term Macedonia had been in use for the entire region, including the independent Republic of Macedonia, both locally and beyond, at least since the 19th century, and that the Slavic-speaking inhabitants of the region had been at least as long as Makedonci ( Македонци or in the Bulgarian Pirin Macedonia Македонци ). Internationally, the republic was therefore temporarily recognized as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia ( FYROM for short ; English Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia , FYROM for short ) and was admitted to the UN under this name in 1993. However, most states also officially used the term Republic of Macedonia . The UN called on Greece and Macedonia to find a peaceful settlement in the name conflict . In 2009 Greece blocked Macedonia's admission to NATO's military alliance , the reason being that the name had still not changed. While Albania and Croatia joined the alliance, Macedonia was left out as another potential candidate.

Bulgaria was not only the first state to recognize the country, but also did so under the constitutional name of the Republic of Macedonia . However, Bulgaria refused to recognize the Macedonian language as a separate language. Until 1944, the Slavic dialects in what is now North Macedonia were classified as Bulgarian in Slavic studies (→ History of the Macedonian Language ). During a visit by Prime Minister Ljubčo Georgievski to Sofia in 1998, the linguistic dispute was settled and Macedonia in return renounced any influence on the Macedonian minority in the Bulgarian part of Macedonia. Close military cooperation was also agreed. Bulgaria left 150 tanks and the same number of guns to the new state. For the poorly equipped Macedonian armed forces , this was a transfer of great importance in view of the subsequent Albanian uprisings in the west of the country.

In the course of the name conflict, Greece (1994–1995) broke off economic relations with the Republic of Macedonia. It stopped all exports and imports to and from the Republic of Macedonia. The country, which was currently in a state of upheaval and traditionally economically heavily dependent on Serbia and Greece, was hit hard. However, the European Court of Justice ruled that Greece's action did not contravene EU directives . Greece lifted the unilateral embargo after the government in Skopje showed willingness to negotiate and the national flag was also changed.

After the agreement with Greece, the Macedonian Parliament in Skopje decided to change the name to North Macedonia, which came into force on February 12, 2019.

Ethnic tensions and Ohrid Accords

The UÇK logo

Tensions arose in Macedonia around the year 2000 because the Albanian minority did not see itself represented by the Macedonian state and was striving for more autonomy . This in turn regarded the entire population of Macedonia as Macedonians since independence . The Albanians, who make up around a third of the population (the 2002 census showed around 25 percent, but is in some cases doubted), want more autonomy, which the Slav-Macedonian majority is difficult to give them. This led to civil war-like fighting in the west of the country by the National Liberation Army ( Albanian  Ushtria Çlirimtare Kombëtare , UÇK), which partially encroached on the capital and could only be ended through international mediation. A civil war was prevented by the presence of foreign troops ( Operation Amber Fox ) and the Ohrid Framework Agreement concluded in 2001 through international mediation . This agreement came about primarily through the attitude of President Boris Trajkovski , who also set the rapprochement with the European Union in motion. The Albanian side, however, accuses the government in Skopje of not fully complying with the framework agreement.

On February 26, 2004, President Boris Trajkovski's plane crashed over Stolac in Bosnia and Herzegovina . He was on his way to a funders conference in Mostar . Since Trajkovski was generally considered to be very open and a guarantor of peace in the country, this accident was seen as a serious setback. Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski announced that he would continue his policy, but the presidential elections that had become necessary in April 2004 again put the country at a crossroads. Branko Crvenkovski, who campaigns for Macedonia to move closer to NATO and the European Union, was finally able to prevail in a runoff election against Sasko Kedev from the opposition party VMRO-DPMNE .

Accession negotiations with the EU and NATO

Nikola Gruevski , Prime Minister of Macedonia from 2006 to 2016

In March 2004 Macedonia submitted its application to join the European Union. On December 17, 2005, Macedonia officially became a candidate for membership. However, the country has not yet received a date for starting accession talks.

In the parliamentary elections on July 5, 2006, there was a change of power. The opposition alliance for a better Macedonia led by the conservative party VMRO-DPMNE won with 44 seats. The Macedonia Alliance together with the ruling Social Democratic League of Macedonia (SDSM) only had 32 seats. The VMRO-DPMNE then formed a government with the Albanian Democratic Party (PDSH), the New Social Democratic Party , which had split off from the SDSM, and other small parties. The strongest Albanian party, the Democratic Union for Integration (BDI), was thus relegated to the opposition.

Early parliamentary elections were held on June 1, 2008 , as the PDSH had left the coalition in March. The VMRO-DPMNE won the majority in the elections. Strengthened by the election victory, Nikola Gruevski negotiated with both Albanian parties to form a government and finally concluded a coalition with the stronger Albanian party BDI and the small party of Macedonian Muslims PEI.

In December 2012, the Bulgarian government of Macedonia withdrew its support due to the lack of cooperation and incomplete friendship and neighborhood agreements, due to the Skopje 2014 project and the treatment of the Bulgarian minority in Macedonia, and spoke out against a specific date for the start of EU accession talks.

The settlement of the name dispute made it possible for North Macedonia to join NATO . The country's membership took effect on March 27, 2020.

Political development since 2011

On January 28, 2011 , the Social Democrats boycotted the Macedonian Parliament with the Albanian New Democracy (DR) party and three other smaller parties for an indefinite period. The reason they cited was that Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski had been severely restricting the freedom of the press in the country for some time and that he and his family were involved in corruption. For two years now, the PDSH has also boycotted parliament because Macedonia did not recognize the independently declared Republic of Kosovo . With the non-participation of these parties in future parliamentary sessions, the number of MPs from the opposition parties had fallen to only two independent ones. On March 16, the BDI boycotted the parliamentary session, so the boycott had also spread to the governing parties.

Early parliamentary elections were held on June 5, 2011. Previously, the PDSH returned to parliament and ended its boycott. Parliament was dissolved on April 16. Before that, electoral reforms that had long been called for by the opposition were carried out. Thereafter, the parliament was expanded by three seats, which are reserved for representatives of the diaspora . In the elections, with a turnout of 63.4 percent, VMRO-DPMNE again prevailed as the strongest party with 39.2 percent of the votes, followed by the Social Democrats with 32.8 percent and the BDI with 10.8 percent. The previous Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski was able to continue his governing coalition.

In early 2012, ethnic tensions between Albanians and Macedonians temporarily escalated again.

Since February 2015 the country has been in a political crisis again, due to clashes between the government and the opposition. There were protests, some of which were violent, in Skopje and other larger cities.

Since June 2015, refugee migration on the Balkan route has also been the dominant issue, and a state of emergency was even imposed at times in August. Particularly stressful for the country, which as a neighbor of Greece is the only country that sees massive illegal immigration flows from the EU, that it initially received no support from Brussels. In December, a small-scale border fence was erected on the Greek border . It was only after the Western Balkans Conference in  2016 that a common line was found with the countries as far as Austria.

Prime Minister Gruevski resigned on January 14, 2016 as a result of the ongoing political crisis. The office was temporarily taken over by his party friend and confidante Emil Dimitriev .

literature

  • Katrin Boeckh: From the Balkan Wars to the First World War. Small state politics and ethnic self-determination in the Balkans . Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-486-56173-1 .
  • Tim Graewert: The governments of Macedonia 1990-2014 between regional role model function and authoritarian temptation . In: Renovabis (ed.): Macedonia. Country on the edge of the middle of Europe . Pustet, Regensburg 2015 (= Ost-West, vol. 16, issue 1), pp. 14-25.
  • Johannes Lepsius (Ed.): The great politics of the European cabinets 1871-1914 . Volume 36: The Liquidation of the Balkan Wars 1913–1914 . Berlin 1926. (source edition) .
  • Susanne-Sophia Spiliotis: Tran-territoriality and national demarcation: constitutional processes . Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-486-56415-3 .
  • Stefan Troebst: The Macedonian Century. From the beginnings of the national revolutionary movement to the Ohrid Agreement 1893–2001. Selected essays. (= Southeast European works; Vol. 130) Oldenbourg, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-486-58050-7 ( full text )

Web links

Commons : History of North Macedonia  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. Hans-Dieter Döpmann : The Orthodox Churches in Past and Present , 2nd edition. Verlag Peter Lang, 2010, p. 92.
  2. ^ Rudolf Grulich: The Uniate Church in Macedonia, 1956-1919. Würzburg 1997; Marlene Kurz: Christians under Islamic rule. The zimmi administration in the Ottoman Empire. In: Thede Kahl, Cay Lienau (ed.): Christians and Muslims. Interethnic coexistence in south-eastern European peripheral areas. Lit, Münster 2009, ISBN 978-3-643-50058-8 , p. 96; Friedrich Heyer: The Catholic Church from 1648 to 1870. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1963, p. 189ff.
  3. ^ The Bulgarian Catholic Church ( Memento December 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive ); Eastern Catholics in Bulgaria , online edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia
  4. a b Dunja Melčić: The War of Yugoslavia: Handbook on Prehistory, Course and Consequences , 2007, p. 142.
  5. a b c d e Björn victim: In the shadow of the war. Crew or connection. Liberation or Oppression? A comparative study of the Bulgarian rule in Vardar Macedonia 1915–1918 and 1941–1944 . Verlag Lit, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-7997-6 , p. 21.
  6. Fikret Adanır : The Macedonian Question. Their origin and development until 1908. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1979, ISBN 3-515-02914-1 , p. 54 ff.
  7. Christo A. Christov: The history of Bulgaria. Sofia Press, Sofia 1985, p. 106.
  8. retrobibliothek.de
  9. erwaertiges-amt.de
  10. Björn Sacrifice: In the Shadow of War. Crew or connection. Liberation or Oppression? A comparative study of the Bulgarian rule in Vardar Macedonia 1915–1918 and 1941–1944 . Verlag Lit, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-7997-6 , p. 27.
  11. a b Magarditsch A. Hatschikjan: Tradition and Reorientation in Bulgarian Foreign Policy 1944–1948. The “national foreign policy” of the Bulgarian Workers' Party (Communists). Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-486-55001-2 , pp. 20f.
  12. Edgar Hösch , Karl Nehring, Holm Sundhaussen (ed.): Lexicon for the history of Southeast Europe. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-205-77193-1 , p. 293.
  13. a b c d e f Stefan Troebst: The macedonian century. From the beginnings of the national revolutionary movement to the Ohrid Agreement 1893–2001. Selected essays. Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-486-58050-7 , p. 28f.
  14. ^ Philipp Ther: Nationality Conflicts in the 20th Century. A comparison of causes of inter-ethnic violence. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2001, ISBN 3-447-04494-2 , p. 42.
  15. Claudia Weber : In search of the nation. Culture of remembrance in Bulgaria from 1878–1944 . (= Studies on the history, culture and society of Southeast Europe 2) Lit-Verlag, Münster 2006, ISBN 3-8258-7736-1 , pp. 165f.
  16. Steven W. Sowards: Modern History of the Balkans. The Balkans in the age of nationalism . BoD, Seuzach 2004, ISBN 3-8334-0977-0 , p. 244.
  17. Stefan Troebst: The Macedonian Century. From the beginnings of the national revolutionary movement to the Ohrid Agreement 1893–2001. Selected essays. Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-486-58050-7 , p. 269f.
  18. Oswald Spengler: The fall of the occident. Outlines of a morphology of world history. CH Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-44196-3 , p. 750.
  19. Björn Sacrifice: In the Shadow of War. Crew or connection. Liberation or Oppression? A comparative study of the Bulgarian rule in Vardar Macedonia 1915–1918 and 1941–1944. Münster 2005, p. 165.
  20. Mehmet Hacısalihoğlu: The Young Turks and the Macedonian Question (1890-1918) . Oldenbourg 2003, including dissertation (LMU Munich, 2000), ISBN 978-3-486-56745-8 , ( structure )
  21. Björn Sacrifice: In the Shadow of War. Crew or connection. Liberation or Oppression? A comparative study of the Bulgarian rule in Vardar Macedonia 1915–1918 and 1941–1944. Münster, 2005, p. 165.
  22. Sofia - 127 years of the capital ( Memento of the original from November 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sofia.bg
  23. Wolf Dietrich Behschnitt: nationalism in Serbia and Croatia from 1830 to 1914. Analysis and typology of the national ideology. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-486-49831-2 , p. 39.
  24. Stefan Troebst: The Macedonian Century. From the beginnings of the national revolutionary movement to the Ohrid Agreement 1893–2001. Selected essays. Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-486-58050-7 , p. 30.
  25. Björn Sacrifice: In the Shadow of War. Crew or connection. Liberation or Oppression? A comparative study of the Bulgarian rule in Vardar Macedonia 1915–1918 and 1941–1944. Verlag Lit, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-7997-6 , pp. 180f.
  26. Björn Sacrifice: In the Shadow of War. Crew or connection. Liberation or Oppression? A comparative study of the Bulgarian rule in Vardar Macedonia 1915–1918 and 1941–1944 . Verlag Lit, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-7997-6 , p. 321.
  27. Björn Sacrifice: In the Shadow of War. Crew or connection. Liberation or Oppression? A comparative study of the Bulgarian rule in Vardar Macedonia 1915–1918 and 1941–1944 . Verlag Lit, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-7997-6 , pp. 279f.
  28. BBC: 1963: Thousands killed in Yugoslav earthquake
  29. a b Wolfgang Libal, Christine von Kohl: The Balkans. Stability or Chaos in Europa, Europa Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-203-79535-3 , pp. 102-105.
  30. Recognition by the UN General Assembly : A / RES / 47/225 , April 8, 1993.
  31. ^ Official list of UN member states
  32. Follow-up of the document ( Memento of December 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), September 15, 1995.
  33. Herbert Küpper: Protection of minorities in Eastern Europe - Bulgaria (pdf; 853 kB) ( Memento of the original from January 31, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uni-koeln.de
  34. Deutsche Welle (www.dw.com): Macedonia is now officially called North Macedonia | DW | 02/12/2019. Accessed June 21, 2020 (German).
  35. ^ Is Bulgaria against Macedonia joining the EU , Tageblatt, December 10, 2012; Bulgaria also rejects EU accession talks with Macedonia , europeonline-magazine.eu, December 10, 2012.
  36. Official recording: North Macedonia is 30th NATO member. In: Tagesschau. ARD, March 27, 2020, accessed on June 21, 2020 .
  37. SELMANI: DR KA ZGJEDHUR TË JETË MES POPULLIT DHE ME POPULLIN! (No longer available online.) January 30, 2011; Archived from the original on July 25, 2011 ; accessed on January 31, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.demokraciaere.org
  38. Thellohet kriza ( Memento of the original from November 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / alsat-m.tv
  39. ^ Macedonia: ruling party triumphs in elections. The press, June 6, 2010
  40. Refugee crisis: Macedonia declares a state of emergency - military on duty. In: Focus online, August 20, 2015