Macedonian Australians


Macedonian Australians are Australian citizens of Macedonian descent. Many arrived in the 1920s and 1930s, although larger numbers came to Australia after World War II and the Greek Civil War. By far the largest wave of immigration was during the 1960s and 1970s. As of the 2021 Australian census, Macedonian is the most-spoken Eastern European language in Australia.

Demography

In 2001, 81,898 people claimed Macedonian Ancestry, in 2006 this rose to 83,978 in 2006. Macedonian was the 21st most common ancestry group. Of the total number who claimed Macedonian ancestry in 2001, 39,244 or 47.9% were born in Macedonia, 35,805 or 43.7% were born in Australia, 2,919 or 3.6% were born in Greece and roughly 5% were born elsewhere. In the 2021 Census, 41,786 Australian residents are listed as having been born in North Macedonia, and a total of 111,352 residents declared their ancestry as Macedonian, either alone or in combination with another ancestry. In 2011 Macedonian was spoken at home by 68,843 residents, reducing slightly to 66,173 over the ten years to the 2021 census. In 2021, North Macedonia was the 47th most common birthplace in Australia.
Australian cities with the largest Macedonian-born communities are Melbourne, Sydney and Wollongong.
Most Macedonian Australians are of the Orthodox Christian faith, although there is a small number of Methodists and Muslims. 36,749 Macedonian-born Australian residents declared they were Christian, and 2,161 stated they were Muslim. In 2001 there were a total of 53,249 adherents to the Macedonian Orthodox Church. 28,474 or 53.5% of these were born in Macedonia, 21,324 or 40% were born in Australia, 1,340 or 2.5% were born in Greece and roughly 4% were born elsewhere.

Language

According to ABS data from 2021, 66,173 people were using Macedonian at home, making it the most-spoken Eastern European language, with more speakers than Russian, Polish, Serbian or Croatian. This makes Macedonian, on the night of the 2021 census, the 27th-most-spoken language at home in Australia. In 2001, one-third of Macedonian speakers were aged over 65, 25.9% were aged from 55 to 64, 31.8% were aged from 25 to 54, 1.2% were aged from 13 to 24 and 7.7% were aged from 0–12. 53.2% or 38,826 speakers were born in Macedonia, 37.6% or 27,051 speakers were born in Australia, 4.4% or 3,152 speakers were born in Greece and a further 1.3% or 908 speakers were born in Yugoslavia.
Most Australians born in territory of Macedonia use Macedonian at home. Proficiency in English for Australians born in Macedonia was self-described by census respondents as very well by 33%, well by 33%, 26% not well.
The most significant populations of Macedonian speakers as of 2001 were Melbourne - 30,083, Sydney - 19,980, Wollongong - 7,420, Perth - 5,772, Newcastle - 1,993, Geelong - 1,300, Queanbeyan - 1,105.
Many suburbs have large Macedonian speaking communities, the largest are Port Kembla, Thomastown, Banksia, Coniston and Lalor. In 2001, Cringila was titled the "most Macedonian" suburb in all of Australia with 32.8% of its population speaking Macedonian at home.

History of Macedonians in Australia

Macedonians have been arriving in Australia since the late 1880s as Pečalba. These Pečalbari would go and work overseas to earn money then return home with the spoils. This restricted major settlement. The two major waves of early Macedonian immigration, according to Peter Hill, were when in 1924 America implemented tougher immigration policies and in 1936 when the Ioannis Metaxas regime came into power. By 1921 there were 50 Macedonians in Australia, by 1940 this number had reached over 6,000, the majority of whom were from Florina, Kastoria and Bitola. However, before the Second World War, when the Macedonian identity gained popularity, many Macedonians did not have a strong sense of national identity, but of regional one. The general population pre-WWII commonly considered themselves ethnically as Macedonian Bulgarians or simply as Bulgarians. Until then the number of Macedonian immigrants in Australia was negligible.
After World War II and the Greek Civil War many Macedonians from Greece came to Australia; these people are known as Aegean Macedonians, settling in areas including Richmond and Footscray. When the Yugoslav policies that encouraged its citizens to work overseas were introduced, many ethnic Macedonians within Yugoslavia left for Australia. The peak of this emigration was in the early 1970s. They settled in mainly industrial districts, particularly in Wollongong and Newcastle, in the Melbourne suburb of Thomastown and the Sydney suburb of Rockdale. Many Macedonians from Yugoslavia would also settle in isolated parts of Australia such as Port Hedland. Most of these immigrants were from an agricultural background. Macedonian migration had slowed by the 1980s only to restart in the early 1990s after the breakup of Yugoslavia.
As at the 2006 census 64% of Australian residents born in Macedonia had arrived before 1980.

Macedonians in Victoria

Macedonians have been migrating to Victoria since the late 1880s. Many "pečalbari" decided to settle and they travelled the countryside looking for work as itinerant labourers. Others established market gardens or small businesses in both rural and city areas. Many thousands of Aegean Macedonians came to Victoria in the post war period, today the largest group of Aegean Macedonians can be found in Victoria. During the 1960s and 1970s they were joined by thousands of Macedonians from the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. In 1982, KUD Jane Sandanski was established in St Albans and is still in operation to this day. In 1991, Macedonia declared its independence from the Yugoslav federation. Business migrants from Macedonia soon began to arrive in Australia. By 1986 there were 24,090 Macedonian speakers in Victoria, this reached a peak in 1996 with 32,949 people using Macedonian at home. As of 2006 37,434 people in Victoria had either full or partial Macedonian ancestry. Currently, there are over 40,000 people in Greater Melbourne of Macedonian descent, making up around one percent of the population - the 17th largest ethnicity in the city behind Lebanese but ahead of Croatian.
In Victoria, Macedonians established St. George in Fitzroy, Melbourne during the late 1950s as the first independent Macedonian Orthodox church inside Australia and outside of Macedonia. In Melburnian suburbs with Macedonian communities, other churches were established such as St. Ilija, St. Dimitrija, St. Nikola, St. George & St. Mary, St. Mary, St. Petka, and in Geelong St. John the Baptist. Macedonian Melburnians also built the first Macedonian Orthodox monastery St. Kliment Ohridski - Chudotvorec in the vicinity of King Lake. The Macedonian community of Australia views the Macedonian Orthodox Church as a "Guardian" of Macedonian identity, its people and cultural traditions.
After North Macedonia gained independence in 1991 as the Republic of Macedonia, Greek Australians opposed the move through local protests and tense relations developed with Macedonian Australians. There were some businesses, community buildings and Orthodox churches belonging to both groups which were either destroyed and attacked. Australia recognised Macedonia under its temporary name as "FYROM". Responding to the Greek government stance, the Australian Federal Government issued a directive that its agencies and departments call Macedonians as "Slav-Macedonians" and some people from the north of Greece as "persons associated with Slav-Macedonians". Government owned media, the ABC and SBS dismissed the federal government decision.
In the mid 1990s, Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett backed the Greek position over the Macedonian question in his attempts to shore up local electoral support. At Kennett's insistence, his state government in 1994 issued its own directive that all its departments refer to the language as "Macedonian " and to Macedonians as "Slav Macedonians". Reasons given for the decision were "to avoid confusion", be consistent with federal naming protocols toward Macedonian Australians and repair relations between Macedonian and Greek communities. It was accepted that it would not impact the way Macedonians self identified themselves. The decision upset Macedonians, as they had to use the terms in deliberations with the government or its institutions related to education and public broadcasting.
In mid 1995, the Macedonian Community through its organisation, the Australian Macedonian Human Rights Commission challenged the decision on the basis of the Race Discrimination Act at the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. The plaintiffs described that the government directive treated Macedonian differently and with an unequal status from other officially recognised languages. The commissioner acknowledged the distress the directive caused, but upheld it due to its intent of decreasing community tensions and not causing discrimination based on ethnic background. After the case was dismissed, the Macedonian community went to the Federal Court. The judge stated that HREOC had made errors in its interpretation of various terms and ruled that discrimination had occurred based on ethnic background. The Federal Court repealed the decision in 1998 and since then the prefix "slavo-" has been dropped, on the basis of racial discrimination.
The new state government lost an appeal challenging the decision and then went to the High Court of Australia where it was defeated in 2000 after a ruling was made favouring Macedonians in Australia. As a result of local Greek community pressure, the language name matter was still not addressed in Victoria, causing further distress among parts of the Macedonian community. The issue returned to HREOC and in late December 2000, the commissioner ruled that the directive was not in accordance with the law and that it was discrimination based on ethnic background. The commissioner stated that people from the Macedonian community had experienced distress and humiliation as the Victorian Government had not conducted itself lawfully. The state government said it would remove the language directive and Premier Steve Bracks urged acceptance of the ruling among local communities.
In early 2018, amid efforts by the Republic of Macedonia and Greece to resolve the Macedonia naming dispute, some Macedonian Orthodox churches and sporting centres in Melbourne were vandalised with racist and violent graffiti causing distress among the Macedonian community. The Macedonian community organised rallies in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth in support of the Macedonian state retaining its name. Macedonian Australians viewed the name change Macedonian referendum as a flawed process and a majority of community members expressed that they would boycott the vote.
;Geelong
A prominent group of Macedonians has existed in the Geelong area since the 1950s. The first Macedonians, primarily from Aegean Macedonia, arrived in the late 1930s to work in the Industries which surrounded the city. This community, composed mainly of single males, did not establish any form of community or cultural amenities. By the Second World War much of this community had left to seek employment in Melbourne. AftSome suburbs with significant Macedonian populations incer the Second World War the Geelong branch of the Macedonian-Australian People's League had been founded. By 1955 a large group of Aegean Macedonian refugees had arrived in the city. in 1956 the first Macedonian soccer club had been founded in the area. This group was active in the establishment of the Macedonian Communist in Geelong. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s this group of Macedonians was joined by immigrants from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. A KUD Biser/Pearl was founded in the area and plans to consecrate a Macedonian Orthodox Church were drawn up. In 1965 the Macedonian-based soccer club "West Geelong" was founded.
Eventually as more and more Macedonians immigrated to the area another KUD was founded and the plans for the Macedonian Orthodox Church were realised. The church "St Jovan the Baptist" was built in the suburb of Batesford. The community was soon involved with the Macedonian Cultural Week program throughout the 1980s. During the 1990s the community was able to establish itself in the area while the "Macedonian Orthodox Centre" and organisations such as the "Macedonian Senior Citizens Club" were founded. In the following years the community helped to support the Federation of Macedonian Cultural Artistic Associations of Victoria. In 1996 there were 1,341 speakers of Macedonian in the Geelong area this fell to 1,167 in 2006. The number of people born in the Republic of Macedonia also fell from 839 in 1996 to 752 in 2006. The number of people claiming Macedonian ancestry in 2006 was 1,415. The largest groups of Macedonians in the Geelong area could be found in Bell Post Hill, Norlane, North Geelong, Hamlyn Heights and Lovely Banks.
;Shepparton
A community of Macedonians has existed in Shepparton since the 1930s. It is considered to be one of the original Macedonian settlements in Australia. Early pioneers from Greek Macedonia began to come to Shepparton in the 1920s and 1930s. Many of them established Market Gardens. After the Second World War and the Greek Civil War a large number of Aegean Macedonians emigrated to Shepparton. The Macedonians of Shepparton soon became an active force in the Macedonian-Australian People's League and a branch was et up in Shepparton in 1946. Picnics, dances and functions were organised by the local branch. Although some Macedonians came to Shepparton in the 1960s and 1970s from Yugoslavia, the majority of the community were Aegean Macedonians. In the 1970s the St George, Orthodox Church was built although the local congregation was primarily Macedonian. The "Florina Saturday School and Community Centre" was built in 1978 next to the church. The school is still open today and teaches both Greek and Macedonian. Shepparton formed sister city arrangements with the two Macedonian cities of Resen and Salonica. In 1986 the first annual "Macedonian Cultural Day" was held. A 1966 figures puts the number of Macedonians in Shepparton at 600. In 1996, 322 people were speaking Macedonian at home, by 2006 this number had fallen to 213. In 2006, 254 people claimed Macedonian ancestry, of which 78 were born in the Republic of Macedonia.
;Werribee
The city of Werribee between Melbourne and Geelong was one of the original Macedonian settlements in Australia. The first Macedonians arrived in Werribee in 1924, and had great success growing peas, cauliflowers and tomatoes. Many also took to dairy farming and market-gardening. In 1934 the "Greek Macedonian Community of Weribee South" was founded among the Grecophile Macedonians. By 1940 many more had come to the Weribee area, a Macedonian cafe and restaurant had also been set up. In 1947 a branch of the Macedonian-Australian People's League opened in Weribee. It took an instrumental role in the Hospital Appeals. The branch went on to establish a local KUD and social group. After the Greek Civil War a large influx of Aegean Macedonians came to the Weribee area. They would form the backbone of the Macedonian community in Werribee. In the 1960s many Macedonians from Yugoslavia also came to Australia. By the 1970s a Macedonian hall had been set up and two more KUD's had been founded in the area. The Macedonians are well established in the Weribee area and have made a lasting contribution to the region. By 1991 there were 565 Macedonians speakers in Weribee, this rose to 964 in 2006. The number of people claiming Macedonian ancestry are 1,154.