Macedonian issue

The region of Macedonia is known to have been inhabited since Paleolithic times.

Еarliest historical inhabitants

The earliest historical inhabitants of the region were the Pelasgians, the Bryges and the Thracians. The Pelasgians occupied Emathia and the Bryges occupied northern Epirus, as well as Macedonia, mainly west of the Axios River and parts of Mygdonia. Thracians, in early times occupied mainly the eastern parts of Macedonia, (Mygdonia, Crestonia, Bisaltia). The Ancient Macedonians are missing from early historical accounts because they had been living in the southern extremities of the region – the Orestian highlands – since before the Dark Ages. The Macedonian tribes subsequently moved down from Orestis in the upper Haliacmon due to pressure from the Orestae.

Ancient Macedonians

The name of the region of Macedonia ( el, Μακεδονία, ''Makedonia'') derives from the tribal name of the ancient Macedonians ( el, Μακεδώνες, ''Makedónes''). According to the Greek historian Herodotus, the ''Makednoi'' ( el, Mακεδνοί) were a Dorian tribe that stayed behind during the great southward migration of the Dorian Greeks.The word "Makednos" is cognate with the Doric Greek word "Μάκος" ''Μakos'' (Attic form Μήκος – "mékos"), which is Greek for "length". The ancient 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".

The Macedonians ( el, Μακεδόνες, ''Makedónes'') were an ancient tribe that lived on the alluvial plain around the rivers Haliacmon and lower Axios in the northeastern part of mainland Greece. Essentially an ancient Greek people,; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; . they gradually expanded from their homeland along the Haliacmon valley on the northern edge of the Greek world, absorbing or driving out neighbouring non-Greek tribes, primarily Thracian and Illyrian. They spoke Ancient Macedonian, which was either a sibling language to Ancient Greek or a Doric Greek dialect, although the prestige language of the region was at first Attic and then Koine Greek. Their religious beliefs mirrored those of other Greeks, following the main deities of the Greek pantheon, although the Macedonians continued Archaic burial practices that had ceased in other parts of Greece after the 6th century BC. Aside from the monarchy, the core of Macedonian society was its nobility. Similar to the aristocracy of neighboring Thessaly, their wealth was largely built on herding horses and cattle.

Although composed of various clans, the kingdom of Macedonia, established around the 8th century BC, is mostly associated with the Argead dynasty and the tribe named after it. The dynasty was allegedly founded by Perdiccas I, descendant of the legendary Temenus of Argos, while the region of Macedon perhaps derived its name from Makedon, a figure of Greek mythology. Traditionally ruled by independent families, the Macedonians seem to have accepted Argead rule by the time of Alexander I (). Under Philip II (), the Macedonians are credited with numerous military innovations, which enlarged their territory and increased their control over other areas extending into Thrace. This consolidation of territory allowed for the exploits of Alexander the Great (), the conquest of the Achaemenid Empire, the establishment of the diadochi successor states, and the inauguration of the Hellenistic period in West Asia, Greece, and the broader Mediterranean world. The Macedonians were eventually conquered by the Roman Republic, which dismantled the Macedonian monarchy at the end of the Third Macedonian War (171–168 BC) and established the Roman province of Macedonia after the Fourth Macedonian War (150–148 BC).

Before the reign of Alexander I, father of Perdiccas II, the ancient Macedonians lived mostly on lands adjacent to the Haliakmon, in the far south of the modern Greek province of Macedonia. Alexander is credited with having added to Macedonia 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 their lands.

Generations after Alexander, Philip II of Macedon would add new lands to Macedonia, and also reduce neighboring powers such as the Illyrians and Paeonians, who had attacked him when he became king, 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.

Following this period there were 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 Republic 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 any connection with its ancient borders, and now be the home of a greater variety of inhabitants.

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 Prima ("First Macedonia")
: encompassing most of the kingdom of Macedonia, coinciding with most of the modern Greek region of Macedonia, and had Thessalonica as its capital.
*Macedonia Salutaris ("Wholesome Macedonia"), also known as Macedonia Secunda ("Second Macedonia")
: partially encompassing both Pelagonia and Dardania and containing the whole of Paeonia. The province mostly coincides with the present-day North Macedonia. The town of Stobi located to the junction of the Crna Reka and Vardar rivers, the former capital of Paeonia, became the provincial capital.

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 populated by Greeks or Hellenized people by that time) but left much of the region depopulated.

Later in about 800 AD, a new province of the Byzantine Empire – Macedonia, was organised by Empress Irene out of the Theme of Thrace. It had no relation with the historical or geographical region of Macedonia, but instead it was centered in Thrace, including the area from Adrianople (the theme's capital) and the Evros valley eastward along the Sea of Marmara. It did not include any part of ancient Macedon, which (insofar as the Byzantines controlled it) was in the Theme of Thessalonica.

Middle Ages

Taking advantage of the desolation left by the nomadic tribes, Slavs settled in the Balkan Peninsula from the 6th century AD
''(see also: South Slavs)''. Aided by the Avars and by Turkic Bulgars, Slavic tribes in the 6th century started a gradual invasion into the lands of Byzantium. They infiltrated into Macedonia and reached as far south as Thessaly and the Peloponnese, settling in isolated regions that the Byzantines called ''Sclavinias'', until they were gradually pacified. Many Slavs came to serve as soldiers in Byzantine armies and settled in other parts of the Byzantine Empire. Slavic settlers assimilated many among the Romanised and Hellenised Paeonian, Illyrian and Thracian population of Macedonia, 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 these mountainous populations. 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 language area. The Slavs also occupied the hinterland of Thessaloniki, launching consecutive attacks on the city in 584, 586, 609, 620, and 622 AD, but never taking it. Detachments of Avars often joined the Slavs in their onslaughts, but the Avars did not form any lasting settlements in the region. A branch of the Bulgars led by khan Kuber, however, settled in western Macedonia and eastern Albania around 680 AD and also engaged in attacks on Byzantium together with the Slavs. By this time, several different ethnicities inhabited the whole Macedonia region, with South Slavs forming the overall majority in the northern fringes of Macedonia while Greeks dominated the highlands of western Macedonia, the central plains, and the coastline.

At the beginning of the 9th century, Bulgaria conquered the Northern Byzantine lands, including Macedonia B and part of Macedonia A. Those regions remained under Bulgarian rule for two centuries, until the destruction of Bulgaria by the Byzantine Emperor Basil II (nicknamed "the Bulgar-slayer") in 1018.
In the 11th and the 12th centuries, the first historical mention occurs of two ethnic groups just off the borders of Macedonia: the Arvanites in modern Albania and the 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 thousands of 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. Romani, migrating from north India, reached the Balkans - including Macedonia - around the 14th century, with some of them settling there. Successive waves of Romani immigration occurred in the 15th and the 16th century, too. ''(See also: Roma in the Republic of Macedonia)''

In the 13th and the 14th centuries the Byzantine Empire, the Despotate of Epirus, the rulers of Thessaly, and the Bulgarian Empire contested for control of the region of Macedonia, but the frequent shift of borders did not result in any major population changes. In 1338 the Serbian Empire conquered the area, but after the Battle of Maritsa in 1371 most of the Serbian lords of Macedonia acknowledged Ottoman suzerainty. After the conquest of Skopje by the Ottoman Turks in 1392, most of Macedonia formally became incorporated into the Ottoman Empire.

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 fled to the mountains. Ottomans 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.

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 into Kosovo, northern and northwestern Macedonia. Being in the position of power, the Albanian Muslims managed to push out their Christian neighbours and conquered additional territories in the 18th and the 19th centuries. Pressures from central government following the first Russo-Turkish war that ended in 1774 and in which Ottoman Greeks were implicated as a "fifth column" led to the superficial Islamization of several thousand Greek-speakers in western Macedonia. These Greek Muslims retained their Greek language and identity, remained Crypto-Christians, and were subsequently called Vallahades by local Greek Orthodox Christians because apparently the only Turkish-Arabic they ever bothered to learn was how to say "wa-llahi" or "by Allah". The destruction and abandoning of the Christian Aromanian city of Moscopole and other important Aromanian settlements in the southern Albania (Epirus-Macedonia) region in the second half of the 18th century caused a large-scale migration of thousands of Aromanians to the cities and villages of Western Macedonia, most notably to Bitola, Krushevo and surrounding regions. Thessaloniki also became 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.

Hellenic 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 population of historical 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 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. However, the poverty of the Christian peasantry and the lack of proper schooling in villages preserved the linguistic diversity of the Macedonian countryside. 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. According to the ''Istituto Geografiko de Agostini'' of Rome, in 1903 in the vilayets of Selanik and Monastir Greek was the dominant language of instruction in the region:

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 historical Macedonia into Greece following the Balkan Wars in 1913.

Bulgarian idea

Most of the population of Macedonia was described as Bulgarians during 16th and 17th centuries by Ottoman historians and travellers such as Hoca Sadeddin Efendi, Mustafa Selaniki, Hadji Khalfa and Evliya Çelebi. 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 Bulgarian language was preserved as a cultural medium only in a handful of monasteries, and to rise in terms of social status for the ordinary Bulgarian usually meant undergoing a process of Hellenisation. The Slavonic liturgy was, however, preserved at the lower levels of the Bulgarian Archbishopric of Ohrid for several centuries until its abolition in 1767.

The creator of modern Bulgarian historiography, Petar Bogdan Bakshev in his first work "''Description of the Bulgarian Kingdom''" in 1640, mentioned the geographical and ethnic borders of Bulgaria and Bulgarian people including also "''the greather part of Macedonia ... as far as Ohrid, up to the boundaries of Albania and Greece ...''". Hristofor Zhefarovich, a Macedonia-born 18th-century painter, had a crucial influence on the Bulgarian National Revival and significantly affected the entire Bulgarian heraldry of the 19th century, when it became most influential among all generations of Bulgarian enlighteners and revolutionaries and shaped the idea for a modern Bulgarian national symbol. In his testament, he explicitly noted that his relatives were "of Bulgarian nationality" and from Dojran.
Although the first literary work in Modern Bulgarian, History of Slav-Bulgarians was written by a Macedonia born Bulgarian 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 Bulgarians after the decrease in the Turkish population, as well as by their improved economic status. The Bulgarians 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 local Bulgarian 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 Pirin Macedonia in 1874. This process of Bulgarian national revival in Macedonia, however, was much less successful in historical Macedonia, which beside Slavs had compact Greek and Aromanian populations. The Hellenic idea and the Patriarchate of Constantinople preserved much of their earlier influence among local Bulgarians and the arrival of the Bulgarian idea turned the region into a battlefield between those owing allegiance to the Patriarchate and tose to Exarchate with division lines often separating family and kin.

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 Grisebach in 1841, J. Hahn in 1858 and 1863, August Heinrich Petermann in 1869 and Heinrich Kiepert in 1876, Slovak Pavel Jozef Šafárik in 1842 and the Czechs Karel Jaromír 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 Stjepan Verković in 1860, Russians Victor Grigorovich in 1848 Vikentij Makušev and Mikhail Mirkovich 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 in which he regarded the Slavic population of Macedonia as Serbian. 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.

Macedonian question

In Europe, the classic non-national states were the ''multi-ethnic empires'' such as the Ottoman Empire, ruled by a Sultan and the population belonged to many ethnic groups, which spoke many languages. The idea of nation state was an increasing emphasis during the 19th century, on the ethnic and racial origins of the nations. The most noticeable characteristic was the degree to which nation-states use the state as an instrument of ''national unity'', in economic, social and cultural life. By the 19th century, the Ottomans had fallen well behind the rest of Europe in science, technology, and industry. By that time Bulgarians had initiated a purposeful struggle against the Greek clerics. Bulgarian religious leaders had realised that any further struggle for the rights of the Bulgarians in the Ottoman Empire could not succeed unless they managed to obtain at least some degree of autonomy from the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The foundation of the Bulgarian Exarchate in 1870, which included most of Macedonia by a firman of Sultan Abdülaziz was the direct result of the struggle of the Bulgarian Orthodox against the domination of the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople in the 1850s and 1860s.

Afterward, in 1876 the Bulgarians revolted in the ''April uprising''. The emergence of Bulgarian national sentiments was closely related to the re-establishment of the independent Bulgarian church. This rise of national awareness became known as the Bulgarian National Revival. However, the uprising was crushed by the Ottomans. As a result, on the Constantinople Conference in 1876 the predominant Bulgarian character of the Slavs in Macedonia reflected in the borders of future autonomous Bulgaria as it was drawn there. The Great Powers eventually gave their consent to variant, which excluded historical Macedonia and Thrace, and denied Bulgaria access to the Aegean sea, but otherwise incorporated all other regions in the Ottoman Empire inhabited by Bulgarians. At the last minute, however, the Ottomans rejected the plan with the secret support of Britain. Having its reputation at stake, Russia had no other choice but to declare war on the Ottomans in April 1877. The Treaty of San Stefano from 1878, 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 Congress of Berlin in the same year redistributed most Bulgarian territories that the previous treaty had given to the Principality of Bulgaria back to the Ottoman Empire. This included the whole of Macedonia. As a result, in late 1878, the Kresna–Razlog uprising – an unsuccessful Bulgarian revolt against the Ottoman rule in the region of Macedonia – broke out. However the decision taken at the Congress of Berlin soon turned the Macedonian question into "the apple of constant discord" between Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria. The Bulgarian national revival in Macedonia was not unopposed. The Greeks and Serbs, too, had national ambitions in the region, and believed that these could be furthered by a policy of cultural and linguistic dissimilation of the Macedonian Slavs, to be achieved through educational and church propaganda. Nonetheless, by the 1870s the Bulgarians were clearly the dominant national party in Macedonia. It was widely anticipated that the Macedonian Slavs would continue to evolve as an integral part of the Bulgarian nation, and that, in the event of the Ottoman Empire's demise, Macedonia would be included in a Bulgarian successor-state. That these anticipations proved false was due not to any intrinsic peculiarities of the Macedonian Slavs, setting them apart from the Bulgarians, but to a series of catastrophic events, which, over a period of seventy years, diverted the course of Macedonian history away from its presumed trend.

Serbian propaganda

Nineteenth 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 Slavs of Macedonia as "Southern Serbs", Moslems as "Islamized Serbs", and Shtokavian speaking part of today's Croatian population as "Catholic Serbs". But, the basic interests of Serbian state policy was directed to the liberation of the Ottoman regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo; whilst Macedonia and Vojvodina should be "liberated later".

The Congress of Berlin of 1878, which granted Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austro-Hungarian occupation and administration whilst nominally Ottoman, 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 an astronomer and historian from Trieste, 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.

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 an 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. "Bulgarophone", "Albanophone" and "Vlachophone" Greeks were coined to describe the population who were Slavic, Albanian or Vlach ( Aromanian)-speaking. There was also pressure on Aromanians to become linguistically dissimilated from the 18th century, when dissimilation efforts were encouraged by the Greek missionary Cosmas of Aetolia (1714–1779) who taught that Aromanians should speak Greek because as he said "it's the language of our Church" and established over 100 Greek schools in northern and western Greece. The offensive of the clergy against the use of Aromanian was by no means limited to religious issues but was a tool devised in order to convince the non-Greek speakers to abandon what they regarded as a "worthless" idiom and adopt the superior Greek speech: "There we are Metsovian brothers, together with those who are fooling themselves with this sordid and vile Aromanian language... forgive me for calling it a language", "repulsive speech with a disgusting diction".

As with 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 guerrilla groups to Macedonia (see Greek Struggle for Macedonia) especially after the death of Pavlos Melas, which fought the detachments of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO).

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

Bulgarian propaganda

The Bulgarian propaganda made a comeback in the 1890s with regard to both education and arms. 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.

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.

Ethnic Macedonian propaganda

The ethnic Macedonian ideology during the second half of the 19th century was at its inception. One of the first preserved accounts is an article The Macedonian question by Petko Slaveykov, published on 18 January 1871 in the "Macedonia" newspaper in Constantinople. In this article Petko Slaveykov writes: "We have many times heard from the Macedonists that they are not Bulgarians, but they are rather Macedonians, descendants of the Ancient Macedonians". In a letter written to the Bulgarian Exarch in February 1874 Petko Slaveykov reports that discontentment with the current situation "has given birth among local patriots to the disastrous idea of working independently on the advancement of their own local dialect and what’s more, of their own, separate Macedonian church leadership."

In 1880, Georgi Pulevski published ''Slognica Rechovska'' in Sofia as 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 three dictionaries and a collection of songs from Macedonia, customs, and holidays.

The first significant manifestation of ethnic Macedonian nationalism was the boo
За Македонските Работи
(''Za Makedonskite 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 Ethnic 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 Ethnic 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 – only to return to the ethnic Macedonian idea again in the 1920s

Another prominent activist for the ethnic Macedonian national revival was Dimitrija Čupovski, who was one of the founders and the president of the Macedonian Literary Society established in Saint Petersburg in 1902. During the 1913–18 period, Čupovski published the newspaper ''Makedonski Golos (Македонскi Голосъ) (meaning ''Macedonian voice'') in which he and fellow members of the Petersburg Macedonian Colony propagandized the existence of a separate Macedonian people different from Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbs, and were struggling for popularizing the idea for an independent Macedonian state.

Following the Second Balkan War in 1913, the partition of Macedonia among three entities who had taken part in the battle (Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria) placed today's territory within the Kingdom of Serbia. Serbian rule ensured that all ethnic Macedonian symbolism and identity were henceforth proscribed, and only standard Serbian was permitted to be spoken by the locals of Macedonia. In addition, Serbia did not refer to its southern land as ''Macedonia'', a legacy which remains in place today among Serbian nationalists (e.g. the Serbian Radical Party).

The ideas of Misirkov, Pulevski and other ethnic Macedonians would remain 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 North Macedonia that the "Autonomists" in IMRO who defended a Macedonian position are largely ungrounded. IMRO regarded itself – and was regarded by the Ottoman authorities, the Greek guerilla groups, the contemporary press in Europe and even by Misirkov -as an exclusively Bulgarian organization . The present-day historians from North Macedonia claim that IMRO was split into two factions: the first aimed an ethnic Macedonian state, and the second believed in a Macedonia as a part of wider Bulgarian entity.

Romanian propaganda

Attempts at Romanian influence among the Aromanians and Megleno-Romanians of Macedonia began in the early 19th century and were based mainly on linguistic criteria, as well as the claim of a common Thraco-Roman origin of the Romanians (Daco-Romanians) and the Aromanians and Megleno-Romanians. The first Romanian school in Macedonia was established in 1864. Eventually, the total number of schools grew to 93 at the beginning of the 20th century. Romanian influence in the area made some success in Bitola, Kruševo, and in the Aromanian villages in the districts of Bitola and Ohrid. Most Aromanians regard and regarded themselves as a separate ethnic group, and Romanians view such nations as subgroups of a wider Romanian ethnicity. Some Aromanians do identify as part of the Romanian nation however. Currently, among anti-Romanian groups of Aromanians, particularly in Greece, these acts are referred to as "the Romanian propaganda".

Independent point of view

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 fact, Serbian. Rarely used until the end of the 19th century compared to 'Bulgarians', the term '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 term for the Slavs inhabiting Macedonia regardless of their ethnic affinities. The Serbian politician Stojan Novaković proposed in 1887 employing the Macedonistic ideas as they means to counteract the Bulgarian influence in Macedonia, thereby promoting Serbian interests in the region.

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. Henry 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 Robert William Seton-Watson, admitted that the affinities of the majority of them lay with the Bulgarian cause and the Bulgarians and classified them as such. Even in 1914 the Carnegie Commission report states that the Serbs and Greeks classified the Slavs of Macedonia as a distinct group "Slav-Macedonians" for political purposes and this term is "political euphemism designed to conceal the existence of Bulgarians in Macedonia".

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 other than Bulgarians. The ultimate victory of the Allies in 1918 led to the victory of the vision of the Slavic population of Macedonia as Macedonian Slavs, an amorphous Slavic mass without a developed national consciousness.

During the 1920s the Comintern developed a new policy for the Balkans, about collaboration between the communists and the Macedonian movement, and the creation of a united Macedonian movement. The idea for a new unified organization was supported by the Soviet Union, which saw a chance of using this well developed revolutionary movement to spread revolution in the Balkans and destabilize the Balkan monarchies. In the so-called ''May Manifesto of 6 May 1924'', for the first time the objectives of the unified Slav Macedonian liberation movement were presented: independence and unification of partitioned Macedonia, fighting all the neighbouring Balkan monarchies, forming a Balkan Communist Federation and cooperation with the Soviet Union.

Later the Comintern published a resolution about the recognition of Macedonian ethnicity. 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)’.

Absent 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. The existence of a separate Macedonian national consciousness prior to the 1940s is disputed. This confusion is illustrated by Robert Newman in 1935, who recounts discovering in a village in Vardar Macedonia two brothers, one who considered himself a Serb, and the other considered himself a Bulgarian. In another village he met a man who had been, "a Macedonian peasant all his life", but who had varyingly been called a Turk, a Serb and a Bulgarian.Newman, R. (1952) ''Tito's Yugoslavia'' (London) However anti-Serb and pro-Bulgarian feelings among the local population at this period prevailed.

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

Ottoman statistics

The basis of the Ottoman censuses was the millet system. People were assigned to ethnic categories according to religious affiliation. So all Sunni Muslims were categorised as Turks, all members of Greek Orthodox church as Greeks, while rest being divided between Bulgarian and Serb Orthodox churches.Ortaylı, İlber. ''Son İmparatorluk Osmanlı (The Last Empire: Ottoman Empire)'', İstanbul, Timaş Yayınları (Timaş Press), 2006. pp. 87–89. . All censuses concluded that the province is of Christian majority, among whom the Bulgarians prevail.

1882 Ottoman census in Macedonia:

1895 census:

Special survey in 1904 of Hilmi Pasha (648 thousand followes of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and 557 thousand faithful of the Bulgarian Exarchate, but an additional 250 thousand of the former) had identified as Bulgarian speakers.

Census 1906:

Rival statistical data

''Encyclopædia Britannica''

The 1911 edition of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' gave the following statistical estimates about the population of Macedonia:
*Slavs (described in the encyclopaedia as a "Slavonic population, the bulk of which is regarded by almost all independent sources as Bulgarians"): approximately 1,150,000, whereof, 1,000,000 Orthodox and 150,000 Muslims (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 part of the Slavic-speaking population in southern Macedonia regarded itself as ethnically Greek 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 region of Macedonia as it was defined by Serbs and Bulgarians (Aegean, Vardar and Pirin), roughly corresponding to Manastir Vilayet, Salonica Vilayet

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