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Macedonian History

Ancient History

Macedonia has a long, rich history dating back to biblical times. In fact, Macedonia is mentioned at least 23 times in seven books of the Holy Bible. The Macedonian region, located in south-central Balkans, is comprised of northern Greece, southwestern Bulgaria, and the independent Republic of North Macedonia.

Its ancient history has been traced back to ~2000 B.C. when the Indo-European people settled the region, making it their kingdom, Macedon.

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Our Fight For Autonomy

Macedonia, under the Ottomans, was essentially a geographic region, not an ethnographic one. Macedonia was populated by a number of different ethnic groups including Slavic Bulgarians, Turks, Greeks, Arumanians (Vlakhs), Albanians, and Sephardic Jews. The largest of these ethnic groups was the Slavic Bulgarians. Macedonians are natives or descendants of any one of the above-mentioned ethnic groups.

The Ottoman’s inability to create and implement reforms that would improve the lives of our ancestors ignited the fight for autonomy. As the Ottoman Empire fell, our ancestors fight for autonomy turned to a fight for freedom and independence as Macedonia became the target of Greek, Serbian and Bulgarian expansion, each claiming closer ethnic or historical ties than the others.

Such conflict and persecution led many Macedonians to leave their homeland and immigrate to North America and Australia. Over time, they began to demand and lobby the world’s great powers to help in the establishment of a free and independent Macedonia. The Macedonian Patriotic Organization (MPO) was established in 1922 for this very reason.

In 1991, independence finally came to a portion of Macedonia!

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Our Recent History

Eventually, those Macedonians who had immigrated to North America and Australia began to demand and lobby the great powers of the world to help in the establishment of a free and independent Macedonia. The Macedonian Patriotic Organization (MPO)  was established in 1922 for this very reason.

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The Macedonian TimeLine

Macedon established as a kingdom under the leadership of Philip II and his son, Alexander the Great

Macedonia conquered by the Roman Empire and became a Roman province

Macedonia became part of Eastern Roman Empire, eventually known as the Byzantine Empire

St. Cyril and St. Methody, along with their disciples, St. Kliment of Ohrid & St. Naum, spread Christianity in the Slavonic language

Chronic wars ensued for control of Macedonia

Macedonia became part of the Ottoman Empire and remained part of it for 500 years

Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) founded to establish Macedonia as an autonomous state

Ilinden Uprising, a significant but unsuccessful rebellion

Two successive military conflicts that deprived the Ottoman Empire of almost all its remaining territory in Europe, including the Macedonian region

The Treaty of Bucharest ended the Second Balkan War and divided the Macedonian region among Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria

Macedonia region in Serbia declares independence from Yugoslavia; however, naming disagreements resulted in the name the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

 

Republic of North Macedonia selected to formally end naming disagreements

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Ancient History

This kingdom, Macedon, became a great power under the leadership of Philip II and his son, Alexander the Great.  The Macedonians of this era were likely Illyrians, an ancient people who were probably the distant ancestors of the present-day Albanians.  By 148 B.C., Macedonia was conquered by the Roman Empire and became a Roman province.  When the Roman Empire was split into two around 395 A.D., Macedonia became part of the Eastern Roman Empire which eventually became known as the Byzantine Empire.  Slav migrations to Macedonia occurred largely in the 7th century. Through the work of St. Cyril and St. Methody, along with their disciples, St. Kliment of Ohrid & St. Naum, these Slavs became Christian, a religion which they shared with their Byzantine masters. 
 
Soon, chronic wars emerged between the expansionist Bulgarian state and the Byzantine Empire for control of Macedonia.  The wars continued from the late 900s A.D. into the early 1000s A.D., and eventually a large part of Macedonia became part of Bulgaria.  Later, Byzantium or the Byzantine Empire was able to retake Macedonia.  Then Serbia conquered a large part of Macedonia, but this was short lived because by 1392 the Ottoman Empire took over Byzantium, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Macedonia.
 
By the very late 1300s, Macedonia became part of the Ottoman Empire and remained part of it for 500 years.  Macedonia, under the Ottomans, was essentially a geographic region, not an ethnographic one.  Macedonia was populated by a number of different ethnic groups including Slavic Bulgarians, Turks, Greeks, Arumanians (Vlakhs), Albanians, and Sephardic Jews.  The largest of these ethnic groups were the Slavic Bulgarians.  In the minds of our ancestors, a Macedonian was a native or descendent of any one of the above-mentioned ethnic groups from Macedonia.
 
Life was not easy for our Bulgarian Macedonian ancestors.  They were second class citizens in a Muslim empire.  The Ottomans allowed them to keep their religion and speak their own language, but they were negligent in protecting them from lawless and mean-spirited Greek and Serbian terrorists who were allowed to roam freely from village to village.  These armed bands of Greek and Serbian mercenaries, who were supported by the civil and religious authorities in Athens and Belgrade, were allowed to harass, terrorize, and sometimes even murder people into accepting the claim that Macedonian Slavs were really Bulgarianized Greeks or Bulgarianized Serbs.  The purpose of this claim was to show the world that, when the “sick man of Europe” (as the Ottoman Empire was called) died, the rightful heirs to Macedonia were Greece and Serbia.  This lack of protection, along with the hardships associated with the second-class citizen status, forced our ancestors to take action. 

Fight For Automony

In order to deal with the Ottoman Empire’s inability to placate the discontent of our ancestors, immediate action needed to be taken.    This action took the form of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) and the Ilinden Uprising of 1903 which fought for Macedonian autonomy.  Although the overwhelming majority of our Bulgarian Macedonian ancestors supported this momentous event, it failed miserably and our people suffered terribly through persecution, arrests, and executions by the Ottoman establishment.  The leaders of the Uprising knew, without the support of the great powers of Europe, the odds of winning were impossible. They hoped, however, that at least some of the great powers would respond favorably with concrete support, but this did not happen.  Life became even more unbearable for our people in the aftermath of Ilinden.
 
Things got even worse when the Ottoman Empire finally fell as a result of the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913.  These wars ended with the partition of Macedonia to Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria.  Greece and Serbia got the largest parts of Macedonia, while Bulgaria only received a very small piece.  When partition was all said and done, our ancestors in the Greek and Serbian parts suffered even more than they did under Ottoman rule.  They could no longer speak their own language, practice their own customs and traditions, and they were forced to worship in Greek and Serbian churches.  They could no longer consider themselves Macedonians; they were now Greek or Serbian.  Those who tried to stand against these imposed hardships were either imprisoned or put to death.  

Such conflict and persecution led many Macedonians to leave their homeland and immigrate to North America and Australia. Over time, they began to demand and lobby the world’s great powers to help in the establishment of a free and independent Macedonia. The Macedonian Patriotic Organization (MPO) was established in 1922 for this very reason.

In 1991, independence finally came to a portion of Macedonia!

Our Recent History

Eventually, those Macedonians who had immigrated to North America and Australia began to demand and lobby the great powers of the world to help in the establishment of a free and independent Macedonia. The Macedonian Patriotic Organization (MPO)  was established in 1922 for this very reason.
 

Ironically, independence finally came to part of Macedonia in the early 1990s—the part that belonged to Serbia.  Serbia was one of the nations that was part of Yugoslavia, a federation of several Slavic countries.  Up until the end of World War II, Macedonia remained part of Serbia, but the new Communist post-war leaders of Yugoslavia separated Macedonia from the rest of Serbia and made it a separate state within the Yugoslav Federation. Communist authorities also gave this part of Macedonia, Vardar Macedonia, a new identity. The Slavic people of Vardar Macedonia would no longer be Serbs or even Bulgarian Macedonians. They would now be ethnic Macedonians with their own unique history and language based on the Veles dialect. From then on, their ethnicity and nationality would be one and the same. The purpose of this intervention by Yugoslav Communists was to ensure that our people in Vardar Macedonia remained loyal to Yugoslavia, even if this meant erasing references to the cultural and historic connections between the ethnic Macedonian and Bulgarian Macedonian identities. The problem was in the fact that, to a large extent, this was achieved via propaganda involving misrepresentations of historic facts and creating official historic narratives based on speculations. When Yugoslavia fell after the death of Marshal Tito, Vardar Macedonia finally became free and independent.
 
The name to be given to this newly independent nation became an issue.  The new Macedonian Republic was essentially forced to accept the following name—the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia or FYROM, instead of just Macedonia or Republic of Macedonia.  The Macedonian Republic did this as a compromise to placate Greece and Greece’s allies in order to pave the way for its acceptance as a member of the United Nations in April 1993.  In June 2018, Greece and Macedonia formally resolved the conflict with a controversial agreement changing the name of FYROM to the “Republic of North Macedonia”.  Macedonian supporters of this controversial agreement now hope it will pave the way for North Macedonia to have full membership in NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and eventually the European Union (EU).