Macedonia (region)


Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time; however, it came to be defined as the modern geographical region by the mid-19th century. Today the region is considered to include parts of six Balkan countries: all of North Macedonia, large parts of Greece and Bulgaria, and smaller parts of Albania, Serbia, and Kosovo. Greek Macedonia comprises about half of Macedonia's area and population.
Its oldest known settlements date back approximately to 7,000 BC. From the middle of the 4th century BC, the Kingdom of Macedon became the dominant power on the Balkan Peninsula; since then Macedonia has had a diverse history.

Etymology

Both proper nouns Makedṓn and Makednós are morphologically derived from the Ancient Greek adjective makednós meaning "tall, slim", and are related to the term Macedonia.

Boundaries and definitions

Ancient times

The definition of Macedonia has changed several times throughout history. Prior to its expansion under Alexander the Great, the ancient kingdom of Macedonia, to which the modern region owes its name, lay entirely within the central and western parts of the current Greek province of Macedonia and consisted of 17 provinces/districts or eparchies.
Expansion of Kingdom of Macedon:
  1. Kingdom of Perdiccas I: Macedonian Kingdom of Emathia consisting of six provinces Emathia, Pieria, Bottiaea, Mygdonia, Eordaea and Almopia.
  2. Kingdom of Alexander I: All the above provinces plus the eastern annexations Crestonia, Bisaltia and the western annexations Elimiotis, Orestis and Lynkestis.
  3. Kingdom of Philip II: All the above provinces plus the appendages of Pelagonia and Macedonian Paeonia to the north, Sintike, Odomantis and Edonis to the east and the Chalkidike to the south.

    Roman era

In the 2nd century, Macedonia covered approximately the area where it is considered to be today, but the northern regions of today Republic of North Macedonia were not identified as Macedonian lands. For reasons that are still unclear, over the next eleven centuries Macedonia's location was changed significantly. The Roman province of Macedonia consisted of what is today Northern and Central Greece, much of the geographical area of the Republic of North Macedonia and southeast Albania. Simply put, the Romans created a much larger administrative area under that name than the original ancient Macedon. In late Roman times, the provincial boundaries were reorganized to form the Diocese of Macedonia, consisting of most of modern mainland Greece right across the Aegean to include Crete, southern Albania, southwest Bulgaria, and most of Republic of North Macedonia.
File:Greater Macedonia.png|thumb|right|upright=1.2|The maximum range of modern geographical region of Macedonia shown in blue. The region is divided by the national boundaries of Greece, the Republic of North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, and Kosovo.

Byzantine era

In the Byzantine Empire, a province under the name of Macedonia was carved out of the original Theme of Thrace, which was well east of the Struma River. This thema variously included parts of Thrace and gave its name to the Macedonian dynasty. Hence, Byzantine documents of this era that mention Macedonia are most probably referring to the Macedonian thema. The region of Macedonia, on the other hand, which was ruled by the First Bulgarian Empire throughout the 9th and the 10th century, was incorporated into the Byzantine Empire in 1018 as the Themе of Bulgaria.

Ottoman era

With the gradual conquest of southeastern Europe by the Ottomans in the late 14th century, the name of Macedonia disappeared as an administrative designation for several centuries and was rarely displayed on maps. The name was again revived to mean a distinct geographical region in the 19th century, defining the region bounded by Mount Olympus, the Pindus range, mounts Shar and Osogovo, the western Rhodopes, the lower course of the river Mesta and the Aegean Sea, developing roughly the same borders that it has today.

Demographics

During medieval and modern times, Macedonia has been known as a Balkan region inhabited by many ethnic groups. Today, as a frontier region where several very different cultures meet, Macedonia has an extremely diverse demographic profile. The current demographics of Macedonia include:
  • Macedonian Greeks self-identify culturally and regionally as "Macedonians". They form the majority of the region's population. They number approximately 2,500,000 and, today, they live almost entirely in Greek Macedonia. The Greek Macedonian population is mixed, with other indigenous groups and with a large influx of Greek refugees descending from Asia Minor, Pontic Greeks, and East Thracian Greeks in the early 20th century. This is due to the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, during which over 1.2 million Anatolian Greek refugees replaced departing Turks and settled in Greece, including 638,000 in the Greek province of Macedonia. Smaller Greek minorities exist in Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia, although their numbers are difficult to ascertain. In official census results, only 86 persons declared themselves Greeks in Bulgarian Macedonia in 2011, out of a total of 1,379 in all of Bulgaria; while only 294 persons described themselves as Greeks in the 2021 census in the Republic of North Macedonia.
  • Ethnic Macedonians self-identify as "Macedonians" in an ethnic sense as well as in the regional sense. They are the second largest ethnic group in the region. Being a South Slavic ethnic group they are also known as "Macedonian Slavs" and "Slav Macedonians" in Greece, though this term can be viewed as derogatory by ethnic Macedonians, including those in Greek Macedonia. They form the majority of the population in the Republic of North Macedonia where according to the 2021 census, approximately 1,100,000 people declared themselves as Macedonians. In 1999, the Greek Helsinki Monitor estimated a significant minority of ethnic Macedonians ranging from 10,000 to 30,000 that exist among the Slavic-speakers of Greek Macedonia. There has not been a census in Greece on the question of mother tongue since 1951, when the census recorded 41,017 Slavic-speakers, mostly in the West Macedonia periphery of Greece. The linguistic classification of the Slavic dialects spoken by these people are nowadays typically classified as Macedonian, with the exception of some eastern dialects which can also be classified as Bulgarian, although the people themselves call their native language a variety of terms, including makedonski, makedoniski, slaviká, dópia or entópia, balgàrtzki, bògartski along with naši and stariski. Most Slavic-speakers declare themselves as ethnic Greeks, although there are small groups espousing ethnic Macedonian and Bulgarian national identities, however some groups reject all these ethnic designations and prefer terms such as "natives" instead. The Macedonian minority in Albania are an officially recognised minority in Albania and are primarily concentrated around the Prespa region and Golo Brdo and are primarily Eastern Orthodox Christian with the exception of the later region where Macedonians are predominantly Muslim. In the 2011 Albanian census, 5,870 Albanian citizens declared themselves Macedonians. According to the latest Bulgarian census held in 2011, there are 561 people declaring themselves ethnic Macedonians in the Blagoevgrad Province of Bulgaria. The official number of ethnic Macedonians in Bulgaria is 1,654.
  • Macedonian Bulgarians are ethnic Bulgarians who self-identify regionally as "Macedonians". They represent the bulk of the population of Bulgarian Macedonia. They number approximately 250,000 in the Blagoevgrad Province where they are mainly situated. There are small Bulgarian-identifying groups in Albania, Greece and the Republic of North Macedonia. In the Republic of North Macedonia, 3,504 people claimed a Bulgarian ethnic identity in the 2021 census.
  • Albanians are another major ethnic group in the region. Ethnic Albanians make up the majority in certain northern and western parts of the Republic of North Macedonia, and account for 24.3% of the total population of the Republic of North Macedonia, according to the 2021 census.
  • Smaller numbers of Turks, Bosniaks, Roma, Serbs, Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Egyptians, Armenians and Jews can also be found in Macedonia.

    Religion

Most present-day inhabitants of the region are Eastern Orthodox Christians, principally of the Bulgarian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Macedonian Orthodox and Serbian Orthodox Churches. Notable Muslim minorities are present among the Albanian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Bosniak, and Turkish populations.
During the period of classical antiquity, main religion in the region of Macedonia was the Ancient Greek religion. After the Roman conquest of Macedonia, the Ancient Roman religion was also introduced. Many ancient religious monuments, dedicated to Greek and Roman deities are preserved in this region. During the period of Early Christianity, ecclesiastical structure was established in the region of Macedonia, and the see of Thessaloniki became the metropolitan diocese of the Roman province of Macedonia. The archbishop of Thessaloniki also became the senior ecclesiastical primate of the entire Eastern Illyricum, and in 535 his jurisdiction was reduced to the administrative territory of the Diocese of Macedonia. Later it came under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.
During the Middle Ages and up to 1767, western and northern regions of Macedonia were under the jurisdiction of the Archbishopric of Ohrid. Northern fringes of the region had temporary jurisdiction under the Serbian Patriarchate of Peć. Both the Archbishopric of Ohrid and the Patriarchate of Peć became abolished and absorbed into the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in the middle of the 18th century. During the period of Ottoman rule, a partial islamization was also recorded. In spite of that, the Eastern Orthodox Christianity remained the dominant religion of local population.
During the 19th century, religious life in the region was strongly influenced by rising national movements. Several major ethnoreligious disputes arose in the region of Macedonia, main of them being schisms between the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and the newly created Bulgarian Exarchate, and later between the Serbian Orthodox Church and the newly created Macedonian Orthodox Church.