North Macedonia
North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the north. It constitutes approximately the northern third of the larger geographical region of Macedonia. Skopje, the capital and largest city, is home to a quarter of the country's population of over 1.83 million. The majority of the residents are ethnic Macedonians, a South Slavic people. Albanians form a significant minority at around 25%, followed by Turks, Roma, Serbs, Bosniaks, Aromanians and a few other minorities.
The region's history begins with the kingdom of Paeonia. In the late sixth century BC, the area was subjugated by the Persian Achaemenid Empire, then incorporated into the Kingdom of Macedonia in the fourth century BC. The Roman Republic conquered the region in the second century BC and made it part of its larger province of Macedonia. The area remained part of the Byzantine Empire, but was often raided and settled by Slavic tribes beginning in the sixth century CE. Following centuries of contention between the Bulgarian, Byzantine, and Serbian Empires, it was part of the Ottoman Empire from the mid-14th until the early 20th century, when, following the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, the modern territory of North Macedonia came under Serbian rule.
During the First World War, the territory was ruled by Bulgaria. After the end of the war, it returned to Serbian rule as part of the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. During the Second World War, it was again ruled by Bulgaria; and in 1945 it was established as a constituent state of communist Yugoslavia, which it remained until its peaceful secession in 1991. The country became a member of the United Nations in 1993.
North Macedonia is a member of NATO, the Council of Europe, the World Bank, OSCE, CEFTA, BSEC and the WTO. Since 2005, it has also been a candidate for joining the European Union. North Macedonia is an upper-middle-income country by the World Bank's definitions and has undergone considerable economic reform since its independence in developing an open economy. It is a developing country with a very high Human Development Index and low income inequality; and provides social security, a universal health care system, and free primary and secondary education to its citizens.
Names and etymology
The state's name derives from the Greek word , a kingdom named after the ancient Macedonians. Their name, , ultimately derives from the ancient Greek adjective Makednos, meaning 'tall' or 'taper', which shares the same root as the adjective in ancient Greek. The name is believed to have originally meant either 'highlanders' or 'the tall ones', possibly descriptive of the people. According to the linguist Robert S. P. Beekes, both terms are of pre-Greek substrate origin and cannot be explained in terms of Indo-European morphology. According to linguist Filip De Decker, Beekes's arguments are insufficiently supported.Apart from the Byzantine theme of Macedonia, the name "Macedonia" was largely forgotten as a geographical denomination through the Byzantine and Ottoman eras but was revived by Bulgarian and Greek nationalist movements from the early 19th century onwards. It was revived only in middle of the century, with the 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 Serbianisation of the local Slavic-speakers. 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 breakup of Yugoslavia, this federal entity declared independence and proclaimed as its official name the "Republic of Macedonia" in 1991.
The Prespa agreement of June 2018 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 amidst a boycott, leaving the final decision with parliament to ratify the result. Parliament approved of the name change on 19 October, reaching the required two-thirds majority needed to enact constitutional changes. The vote to amend the constitution and change the name of the country passed on 11 January 2019 in favour of the amendment. The amendment entered into force on 12 February, following the ratification of the Prespa agreement and the Protocol on the Accession of North Macedonia to NATO by the Greek Parliament.
History
Early history
North Macedonia geographically roughly corresponds to the ancient kingdom of Paeonia, which was located immediately north of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia. In early times, the chief town and seat of the Paeonian kings was Bylazora on the Vardar; later, the seat of the kings was moved to Stobi. Paeonia was inhabited by the Paeonians, whilst the northwest was inhabited by the Illyrian Dardani and southwest by the Enchelae, as well as Pelagones and Lyncestae.In the late 6th century BC, the Achaemenid Persians under Darius the Great conquered Paeonia, incorporating the area within their vast territories. Following their defeat in the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 479 BC, the Persians eventually withdrew from their European territories.
File:Ancientbitola.jpg|thumb|Heraclea Lyncestis, a city founded by Philip II of Macedon in the 4th century BC; ruins of the Byzantine "Small Basilica"
Philip II of Macedon absorbed the regions of Upper Macedonia and the southern part of Paeonia into the kingdom of Macedon in 356 BC. After the death of Agis, the kingdom of Paeonia then led by Lycceius, became vassal to Philip II 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. After the death of Alexander, Celtic armies began to bear down on the southern regions, threatening the kingdom of Macedon. In 310 BC, they attacked the area, but were defeated.
The Romans established the province of Macedonia in 146 BC. By the time of Diocletian, the province had been subdivided between Macedonia Prima in the south, encompassing most of the kingdom of Macedon, and Macedonia Salutaris in the north, encompassing parts of Dardania and the whole of Paeonia, with the city of Stobi as its capital. This comprised most of the territory of the modern country. Roman expansion brought the Scupi area under Roman rule in the time of Domitian, and it fell within the Province of Moesia. Whilst Greek remained the dominant language in the eastern part of the Roman empire, especially south of the Jireček Line, Latin spread to Macedonia to some extent.
Medieval period
settled in the Balkan region including North Macedonia by the late 6th century AD. They were led by Pannonian Avars. The Slavs settled on places of earlier settlements and probably merged later with the local populations to form mixed Byzantine-Slavic communities. Historical records document that in a Bulgar ruler called Kuber led a group of largely Christians called Sermesianoi, who were his subjects, and they settled in the region of Pelagonia. They may have consisted of Bulgars, Byzantines, Slavs and even Germanic tribes. There is no more information of Kuber's life. Presian's reign apparently coincides with the extension of Bulgarian control over the Slavic tribes in and around Macedonia. 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. The Ohrid Literary School became one of the two major cultural centres of the First Bulgarian Empire, along with the Preslav Literary School. Established in Ohrid in 886 by Saint Clement of Ohrid on the order of Boris I, the Ohrid Literary School was involved in the spreading of the Cyrillic script.After Sviatoslav's invasion of Bulgaria, the Byzantines took control of East Bulgaria. Samuil was proclaimed Tsar of Bulgaria. He moved the capital to Skopje and then to Ohrid, which had been the cultural and military centre of southwestern Bulgaria since Boris I's rule. Samuil re-established Bulgarian power, but after several decades of conflicts, in 1014, the Byzantine Emperor Basil II defeated his armies, and within four years the Byzantines restored control over the Balkans. The rank of the autocephalous Bulgarian Patriarchate was lowered due to its subjugation to Constantinople and it was transformed into the Archbishopric of Ohrid. By the late 12th century, Byzantine decline saw the region contested by various political entities, including a brief Norman occupation in the 1080s.
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. In the 14th century, it became part of the Serbian Empire. Skopje became the capital of Tsar Stefan Dušan's empire. Following Dušan'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.