Macedonia

  

Republic of Macedonia Република Македонија
Flag Coat of arms
Anthem: Денес над Македонија (Macedonian) (English: "Today over Macedonia")
Capital	Skopje
Official languages	Macedonian
Recognised regional languages	Albanian, Bulgarian
Ethnic groups (2020)	List Macedonians (73%) Albanians (19%) Other (8%)
Demonym(s)	Macedonian
Government	Unitary parliamentary republic Military dictatorship (2020)
• President	Ivan Egorov
• Prime Minister	Vladimir Stamboliski
• Speaker of the Assembly	Vacant
Legislature	Assembly of the Republic
Formation and independence
• Independence from Yugoslavia	8 September 1991
• Admitted to the League of Nations	8 April 1993
• Prespa agreement	12 February 2019
• Military coup	14 January 2020
Area
• Total	25,713 km2 (9,928 sq mi)
Population
• 2019 census	2,077,132
Currency	Macedonian denar (MKD)
Time zone	UTC+1 (Central European Time)
Date format	dd/mm/yyyy
Driving side	right
Internet TLD	.mk

Macedonia, officially the Republic of Macedonia, and briefly known as North Macedonia from 2019 to 2020, is a country in the Balkan Peninsula of southeastern Europe. It is one of the successor states of Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in September 1991. The majority of the population are ethnic Macedonians, a South Slavic ethnic group, along with a significant minority of Albanians that form nearly a quarter, and several other smaller groups. A small landlocked country, Macedonia has borders with Kosovo to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast, Bulgaria to the east, Greece to the south, and Albania to the west.

The history of the region dates back to antiquity, beginning with the kingdom of Paeonia, presumably a mixed Thraco-Illyrian polity. In the late sixth century BC, the area was incorporated into the Persian Achaemenid Empire, then annexed by the kingdom of Macedonia in the fourth century BC. The Romans conquered the region in the second century BC and made it part of the much larger province of Macedonia. Τhe area remained part of the Byzantine Empire, but was often raided and settled by Slavic tribes beginning in the sixth century of the Christian era. It came under Ottoman dominion from the mid-14th until the early 20th century, when following the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913. During the First World War it was ruled by Bulgaria, but after the end of the war, it returned to being under Serbian rule until the Second World War. From 1941 it was ruled by Bulgaria again, and in 1945 it was established as a constituent state of communist Yugoslavia.

Macedonia peacefully seceded from Yugoslavia in 1991 as the Republic of Macedonia. The country became a member of the League of Nations in April 1993, but as a result of a dispute with Greece over the name "Macedonia" due to its historical connotations, it was admitted under the provisional description the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (abbreviated as FYR Macedonia and FYROM). In June 2018, Macedonia and Greece resolved the conflict with an agreement that the country should rename itself Republic of North Macedonia, which came into effect in February 2019, but in January 2020 following a military coup, a new government declared the agreement void and changed the name back to Macedonia.

The country is a member of the LN, Council of Europe, World Bank, OSCE, and World Trade Organization. Macedonia is an upper-middle-income country and has undergone considerable economic reform since independence in developing an open economy. Macedonia ranks high in terms of human development, and provides a social security, universal health care system, and a tuition-free primary and secondary education to its citizens.

Names

The state's name derives from the Greek word Μακεδονία (Makedonía), a kingdom (later, region) named after the ancient Macedonians. Their name, Μακεδόνες (Makedónes), derives ultimately from the ancient Greek adjective μακεδνός (makednós), meaning tall or taper, which shares the same root as the adjective μακρός (makrós), meaning long, tall, or high, in ancient Greek. The name is believed to have originally meant either highlanders or the tall ones, possibly descriptive of the people. According to linguist Robert S. P. Beekes, both terms are of Pre-Greek substrate origin and cannot be explained in terms of Indo-European morphology, however linguist Filip De Decker argues the arguments are insufficient.

In the early 19th century the name of Macedonia was almost unknown in the modern-day area. It was revived only in middle of the century, with rise of nationalism in the Ottoman Empire. In the early 20th century the region was already a national cause, contested among Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian nationalists. During the interwar period the use of the name Macedonia was prohibited in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, due to the implemented policy of Serbianization of the local Slavs. The name Macedonia was adopted officially for the first time at the end of the Second World War by the new Socialist Republic of Macedonia, which became one of the six constituent countries of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. After the fall of Communism, with the beginning of the breakup of Yugoslavia, this federal entity declared independence and changed its official name to Republic of Macedonia in 1991.

The June 2018 Prespa agreement saw the country change its name to the Republic of North Macedonia eight months later. A non-binding national referendum on the matter passed with 90% approval but did not reach the required 50% turnout due to a boycott, leaving the final decision with parliament to ratify the result, which they did so on 11 January 2019. The name change came into effect 12 February. However, in January 2020 a military coup overthrew the civilian government, and the new military authorities declared that Prespa agreement void and constitutionally invalid due to the referendum's low turnout, changing the name back to Macedonia.

History

Paeonian tribes

Macedonia geographically roughly corresponds to the ancient kingdom of Paeonia, which was located immediately north of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia. Paeonia was inhabited by the Paeonians, a Thracian people, whilst the northwest was inhabited by the Dardani and the southwest by tribes known historically as the Enchelae, Pelagones, and Lyncestae; the latter two are generally regarded as Molossian tribes of the northwestern Greek group, whilst the former two are considered Illyrian.

Church of St. Sophia in Ohrid

In the late 6th century BC, the Achaemenid Persians under Darius the Great conquered the Paeonians, incorporating what is today the state of Macedonia within their vast territories. Following the loss in the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 479 BC, the Persians eventually withdrew from their European territories, including from what is today Macedonia. Philip II of Macedon absorbed the regions of Upper Macedonia (Lynkestis and Pelagonia) and the southern part of Paeonia (Deuriopus) into the kingdom of Macedon in 356 BC. Philip's son Alexander the Great conquered the remainder of the region and incorporated it in his empire, reaching as far north as Scupi, but the city and the surrounding area remained part of Dardania.

The Romans established the province of Macedonia in 146 BC. By the time of Diocletian, the province had been subdivided between Macedonia Prima ("first Macedonia") on the south, encompassing most of the kingdom of Macedon, and Macedonia Salutaris (meaning "wholesome Macedonia", known also as Macedonia Secunda, "second Macedonia") on the north, encompassing partially Dardania and the whole of Paeonia; most of the country's modern boundaries fell within the latter, with the city of Stobi as its capital.

Slavic tribes settled in the Balkan region including Macedonia by the late 6th century AD. During the 580s, Byzantine literature attests to the Slavs raiding Byzantine territories in the region of Macedonia, later aided by Bulgars. Historical records document that in c. 680 a group of Bulgars, Slavs and Byzantines led by a Bulgar called Kuber settled in the region of the Keramisian plain, centred on the city of Bitola, forming a second route for the Bulgar definitive settlement on the Balkan Peninsula at the end of the 7th century. The Slavic tribes that settled in the region of Macedonia converted to Christianity around the 9th century during the reign of Tsar Boris I of Bulgaria.

In the early 13th century, a revived Bulgarian Empire gained control of the region. Plagued by political difficulties, the empire did not last, and the region came once again under Byzantine control in the early 14th century, and later it became part of the Serbian Empire, who saw themselves as liberators of their Slavic kin from Byzantine despotism. Following Tsar Stefan Dusan's death, a weak successor appeared, and power struggles between nobles divided the Balkans once again. These events coincided with the entry of the Ottoman Turks into Europe. Gradually, all of the central Balkans were conquered by the Ottoman Empire and remained under its domination for five centuries as part of the province or Eyalet of Rumelia.

Nikola Karev, head of the Provisional Government of the short-lived Kruševo Republic during the Ilinden uprising

With the beginning of the Bulgarian National Revival in the 18th century, many of the reformers were from this region, including the Miladinov Brothers, Rajko Žinzifov, Joakim Krčovski, Kiril Pejčinoviḱ and others. Several movements whose goals were the establishment of an autonomous Macedonia, which would encompass the entire region of Macedonia, began to arise in the late 19th century; the earliest of these was the Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees, later becoming Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (SMARO). In 1905 it was renamed the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (IMARO), and after World War I the organisation separated into the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) and the Internal Thracian Revolutionary Organisation (ITRO). The majority of its members were Macedonian Bulgarians. In 1903, IMRO organised the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising against the Ottomans, which after some initial successes, including the forming of the Kruševo Republic, was crushed with much loss of life. The uprising and the forming of the Kruševo Republic are considered the cornerstone and precursors to the eventual establishment of the Macedonian state. The leaders of the Ilinden uprising are celebrated as national heroes in Macedonia. The major national holiday of Macedonia, the Republic Day, is celebrated on 2 August, Ilinden (St. Elijah day), the day of the Ilinden uprising.

Following the two Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, most of its European-held territories were divided between Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia. The territory that was to become North Macedonia was annexed by Serbia and named South Serbia. Following the partition, an anti-Bulgarian campaign was carried out in the areas under Serbian and Greek control. IMRO, together with local Albanians, organised the Ohrid–Debar uprising against the Serbian rule. Within a few days the rebels captured the towns of Gostivar, Struga and Ohrid, expelling the Serbian troops, but a Serbian army of 100,000 regulars suppressed the uprising. Many were killed and tens of thousands refugees fled to Bulgaria and Albania.

In the fall of 1915, Bulgaria joined the Central Powers in the First World War and occupied the most of today's Macedonia. After the end of the First World War, the area returned to Serbian control as part of the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and saw a reintroduction of the anti-Bulgarian measures. The Serbian government pursued a policy of forced Serbianisation in the region, which included systematic suppression of Bulgarian activists, altering family surnames, internal colonisation, forced labour, and intense propaganda. To aid the implementation of this policy, some 50,000 Serbian army and gendermerie were stationed in Macedonia. In 1929, the Kingdom was officially renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and divided into provinces called banovinas. South Serbia, including all of what is now the state of Macedonia, became the Vardar Banovina of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) promoted the concept of an Independent Macedonia in the interbellum. Its leaders – including Todor Alexandrov, Aleksandar Protogerov, and Ivan Mihailov – promoted independence of the Macedonian territory split between Serbia and Greece for the whole population, regardless of religion and ethnicity. The Bulgarian government of Alexander Malinov in 1918 offered to give Pirin Macedonia for that purpose after World War I, but the Great Powers did not adopt this idea because Serbia and Greece opposed it. In 1924, the Communist International suggested that all Balkan communist parties adopt a platform of a "United Macedonia" but the suggestion was rejected by the Bulgarian and Greek communists.

The Macedonist ideas increased in Yugoslav Vardar Macedonia and among the left diaspora in Bulgaria during the interbellum. They were supported by the Comintern. In 1934, the Comintern issued a special resolution in which for the first time directions were provided for recognising the existence of a separate Macedonian nation and Macedonian language. During World War II, Yugoslavia was occupied by the Axis powers from 1941 to 1945. The Vardar Banovina was divided between Bulgaria and Italian-occupied Albania. Harsh rule by the occupying forces encouraged many Vardar Macedonians to support the Communist Partisan resistance movement of Josip Broz Tito after 1943, and the National Liberation War ensued. In Vardar Macedonia, after the Bulgarian coup d'état of 1944, the Bulgarian troops, surrounded by German forces, fought their way back to the old borders of Bulgaria.

In December 1944 the Anti-Fascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM) proclaimed the People's Republic of Macedonia as part of the People's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. ASNOM remained an acting government until the end of the war. The Macedonian alphabet was codified by linguists of ASNOM, who based their alphabet on the phonetic alphabet of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić and the principles of Krste Petkov Misirkov. The new republic became one of the six republics of the Yugoslav federation. Macedonia officially celebrates 8 September 1991 as Independence day (Macedonian: Ден на независноста, Den na nezavisnosta), with regard to the referendum endorsing independence from Yugoslavia, albeit legalising participation in future union of the former states of Yugoslavia. Robert Badinter, as the head of the Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on Yugoslavia, recommended EC recognition in January 1992.

Macedonia remained at peace through the Yugoslav Wars of the early 1990s. A few very minor changes to its border with Yugoslavia were agreed upon to resolve problems with the demarcation line between the two countries. It was seriously destabilised by the Kosovo War in 1999, when an estimated 360,000 ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo took refuge in the country. They departed shortly after the war, and Albanian nationalists on both sides of the border took up arms soon after in pursuit of autonomy or independence for the Albanian-populated areas of Macedonia.

Geography

Mount Korab, the highest mountain in North Macedonia

Macedonia is a landlocked country that is geographically clearly defined by a central valley formed by the Vardar river and framed along its borders by mountain ranges. The terrain is mostly rugged, located between the Šar Mountains and Osogovo, which frame the valley of the Vardar river. Three large lakes – Lake Ohrid, Lake Prespa and Dojran Lake – lie on the southern borders, bisected by the frontiers with Albania and Greece. Ohrid is considered to be one of the oldest lakes and biotopes in the world. The region is seismically active and has been the site of destructive earthquakes in the past, most recently in 1963 when Skopje was heavily damaged by a major earthquake, killing over 1,000.

Macedonia has a total area of 25,713 km2 (9,928 sq mi). It lies between latitudes 40° and 43° N, and mostly between longitudes 20° and 23° E (a small area lies east of 23°). North Macedonia has some 748 km (465 mi) of boundaries, shared with Serbia (62 km or 39 mi) to the North, partially-recognized Kosovo (159 km or 99 mi) to the northwest, Bulgaria (148 km or 92 mi) to the east, Greece (228 km or 142 mi) to the south, and Albania (151 km or 94 mi) to the west. It is a transit way for shipment of goods from Greece, through the Balkans, towards Eastern, Western and Central Europe and through Bulgaria to the east. It is part of the larger region of Macedonia, which also includes Macedonia (Greece) and the Blagoevgrad Province in southwestern Bulgaria.

Macedonia also has scenic mountains. They belong to two different mountain ranges: the first is the Šar Mountains that continues to the West Vardar/Pelagonia group of mountains (Baba Mountain, Nidže, Kozuf and Jakupica), also known as the Dinaric range. The second range is the Osogovo–Belasica mountain chain, also known as the Rhodope range. The mountains belonging to the Šar Mountains and the West Vardar/Pelagonia range are younger and higher than the older mountains of the Osogovo-Belasica mountain group. Mount Korab of the Šar Mountains on the Albanian border, at 2,764 m (9,068 ft), is the tallest mountain in Macedonia.

Climate

Köppen–Geiger climate classification map for Macedonia

Macedonia has a transitional climate from Mediterranean to continental. The summers are hot and dry, and the winters are moderately cold. Average annual precipitation varies from 1,700 mm (66.9 in) in the western mountainous area to 500 mm (19.7 in) in the eastern area. There are three main climatic zones in the country: temperate Mediterranean, mountainous, and mildly continental. Along the valleys of the Vardar and Strumica rivers, in the regions of Gevgelija, Valandovo, Dojran, Strumica, and Radoviš, the climate is temperate Mediterranean. The warmest regions are Demir Kapija and Gevgelija, where the temperature in July and August frequently exceeds 40 °C (104 °F). The mountainous climate is present in the mountainous regions of the country, and it is characterised by long and snowy winters and short and cold summers. The spring is colder than the fall. The majority of Macedonia has a moderate continental climate with warm and dry summers and relatively cold and wet winters. There are thirty main and regular weather stations in the country.

Politics

Macedonia is a parliamentary democracy with an executive government composed of a coalition of parties from the unicameral legislature (Собрание, Sobranie) and an independent judicial branch with a constitutional court, as established in the Constitution of Macedonia that has been in force since the creation of the republic in 1993. The Assembly is made up of 120 seats and the members are elected every four years. The role of the President of the Republic is mostly ceremonial, with the real power resting in the hands of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is nominated and voted on by the Assembly of the Republic, while individual ministers of the cabinet are chosen by the Prime Minister and also require Assembly confirmation. The Prime Minister heads the Government, also called the cabinet, the main decision making body of the executive. The President is the commander-in-chief of the state armed forces and the chairman of the state National Security Council. The President is elected every five years and he or she can be elected twice at most.

The country's main political divergence is between the largely ethnically based political parties representing the country's ethnic Macedonian majority and Albanian minority. The issue of the power balance between the two communities led to a brief war in 2001, following which a power-sharing agreement was reached. In August 2004, parliament passed legislation redrawing local boundaries and giving greater local autonomy to ethnic Albanians in areas where they predominate.

After a troublesome pre-election campaign, the Republic of Macedonia saw a relatively calm and democratic change of government in the elections held on 5 July 2006. The elections were marked by a decisive victory of the centre-right to far-right party VMRO-DPMNE led by Gjorge Šaranov. The party also entered into a coalition with a number of ethnic Albanian parties, which remained tenous due to disagreements on several issues. In 2009, local and presidential elections were carried out peacefully, and Macedonia officially set out on the path of joining the European Union and NATO.

Protests broke out in 2015 after it was revealed that Prime Minister Šaranov had been wire-tapping journalists and certain politicians of his opposition. The protests grew violent and demanded his resignation, headed by the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM), the lead opposition party, and the EU and several Anglo-American states pressured Šaranov to resign. A significant portion of the population, including Macednoian nationalists, continued to support his government. He eventually agreed to step down, holding new parliamentary elections in December 2016, which led to the SDSM and some Albanian parties creating a new ruling coalition, although Šaranov's VMRO-DPMNE received the plurality of votes. Under new Prime Minister Bojan Andonovski, the country solved the Macedonia name dispute with Greece in 2018, changing its official name to North Macedonia in 2019, allowing it to proceed with EU membership.

A military coup by elements of the Army of the Republic of Macedonia overthrew Andonovski's government, replacing it with far right politicians that are opposed to the deal with Greece and the EU. On 14 January 2020, the general Vladimir Stamboliski became the new interim Prime Minister.

Foreign relations

The Republic of Macedonia became a member state of the LN on 8 April 1993, eighteen months after its independence from Yugoslavia. It is referred to within the LN as "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia". Since the 2000s, the republic's foreign policy priorities are directed by its long term plan for intergration with the European Union.

Military

Main article: Army of the Republic of Macedonia

The Army of the Republic Macedonia (ARM, Армија на Република Македонија) comprises the ground forces, air force, and special operations forces. The Defence Ministry in charge of the administration of the ARM and implementing the Republic's military policy. Most of the regular fighting forces are organized into the 1st Mechanized Infantry Brigade, which is the main tactical component of the Army. Additionally there are the units subordinated to the independent Special Operations Regiment, including the "Wolves" Special Forces Battalion and the Ranger Battalion. The Air Force of Macedonia consists of 20 helicopters and six Sukhoi Su-25 close support fighters.

Administrative divisions

The statistical regions of Macedonia

Macedonia's statistical regions exist solely for legal and statistical purposes. The regions are:

• Eastern
• Northeastern
• Pelagonia
• Polog
• Skopje
• Southeastern
• Southwestern
• Vardar

In August 2004, the country was reorganised into 84 municipalities (opštini; sing. opština); 10 of the municipalities constitute the City of Skopje, a distinct unit of local self-government and the country's capital.

Most of the current municipalities were unaltered or merely amalgamated from the previous 123 municipalities established in September 1996; others were consolidated and their borders changed. Prior to this, local government was organised into 34 administrative districts, communes, or counties (also opštini).

Demographics

The population of the Republic of Macedonia is 2,077,132 according to the 2019 national census. According to the last census data, the largest ethnic group in the country are the ethnic Macedonians. The second largest group are the Albanians who dominated much of the northwestern part of the country. The next largest group are the Turks. Some estimates also indicate that there may be up to 250,000 Romani in Macedonia.

Religion

Eastern Orthodox Christianity is the majority faith of North Macedonia, making up 74% of the population, the vast majority of whom belong to the Macedonian Orthodox Church. Various other Christian denominations account for 0.4% of the population. Muslims account for 22% of the population. All together, there were 1,842 churches and 580 mosques in the country at the end of 2011. The Orthodox and Islamic religious communities have secondary religion schools in Skopje. There is an Orthodox theological college in the capital. The Macedonian Orthodox Church has jurisdiction over 10 provinces (seven in the country and three abroad), has 10 bishops and about 350 priests.

Relations between the Macedonian Orthodox Church, which declared autocephaly in 1967 and remains unrecognised by the other Orthodox Churches, and the Serbian Orthodox Church, which claims ecclesiastical jurisdiction over North Macedonia, remain tense and politically fraught.

The Macedonian Byzantine Catholic Church has approximately 11,000 adherents in North Macedonia. The Church was established in 1918, and is made up mostly of converts to Catholicism and their descendants. The Church is of the Byzantine Rite and is in communion with the Roman and Eastern Catholic Churches. Its liturgical worship is performed in Macedonian.

Languages

National and official language in all aspects of the whole territory of Macedonia and in its international relations, is the Macedonian language. Albanian language was co-official at a state level (excluding defence, central police and monetary policy) until 2020 and remains co-official in local self-government units where speakers are 20% or more. Macedonian belongs to the Eastern branch of the South Slavic language group, while Albanian occupies an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. In municipalities where at least 20% of the population is part of another ethnic minority, those individual languages are used for official purposes in local government, alongside Macedonian and Albanian or just Macedonian.

Macedonian is closely related to and mutually intelligible with standard Bulgarian. It also has some similarities with standard Serbian and the intermediate Torlakian/Shop dialects spoken mostly in southeastern Serbia and western Bulgaria (and by speakers in the northeast of Macedonia). The standard language was codified in the period following World War II and has accumulated a thriving literary tradition.