Macedonians as an obsolete terminology was used in regional and in ethnographic sense and had several meanings, different from these used mostly today. [1] The name of Macedonia was revived on the Balkans during the early 19th century as result of the Western Europe-derived obsession with Ancient Greece. [2] [3] The designation Macedonian arose at the eve of the 20th century and was used beyond but its meanings have changed during the time, and some of them are rarely used anymore.
At first place it was an umbrella term to designate all the inhabitants of the region of Macedonia, regardless of their ethnic origin. [4] "Macedonians" as an umbrella term covered Greeks, Bulgarians, Turks, Aromanians and Megleno-Romanians, Albanians, Serbs, etc. [5] Simultaneously a political concept was created, to encompass all these "Macedonians" in the area, into a separate supranational entity, based on their collective Macedonian regional identity. [6] The new state would to be cantonized, something as "Switzerland on the Balkans". [7] An example is the bylaws of the Macedonian Patriotic Organization. As written originally during 1920s, the bylaws' concept of "Macedonians" had only geographic and not ethnographic meaning, and was equally valid for all ethnic groups in Macedonia. [8] As a remnant from these times, even the latest version of this bylaws, from 2016, retains this very definition of the terms “Macedonians” and "Macedonian emigrants". [9]
At that time, this designation was used also to describe the Slavic speakers in Ottoman Macedonia, but not as a separate ethnic group, because this population was defined then mostly as Bulgarians , [10] while their association with Bulgaria was universally accepted. [11] However, since the second half of the 19th century there were cases when "Macedonian" was used to define and express a separate ethnicity. [12] [13] In the early 20th century, the anarchist Pavel Shatev described the first precursor of the process of an ethno-national differentiation between Bulgarian and Macedonian, while some people he met felt “only Bulgarians”, but others despite being Bulgarians "by nationality", felt themselves Macedonians above all. [14] During the interbellum Bulgaria also stimulated to some extent the development of the Macedonian regional identity, especially in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Its aim was to prevent the Serbianization of the local Slavic Macedonians, because the very use of the name Macedonia was avoided there. [15] [16] Ultimately the designation Macedonian, changed its status in 1944, and went from being predominantly a regional, ethnographic denomination, to a national one within the framework of Democratic Federal Macedonia. [17] Nevertheless, among the older Macedonian immigrant communities, as for example in the USA and Canada, the terms Macedonian, Bulgarian and Macedonian Bulgarian, kept their similar meanings in the first decades after the Second World War. [18] [19] [20]
At the eve of the 20th century, the Bulgarian teacher Vasil Kanchov marked that the local Bulgarians and Aromanians called themselves "Macedonians", and that the surrounding people also called them in the same way. [21] These "Vlachs" (Aromanians and Megleno-Romanians) tended to call themselves Macedonians after moving to urban areas. [22] The urban Aromanians were usually pro-Greek. They also were called by the Romanians as "Macedo-Romanians" because some of them emigrated to Romania from Macedonia during the early 20th century. [23] The designation "Macedonian" for them was also widespread in Romania. [24] When the researcher Keith Brown visited North Macedonia on the eve of the 21st century, he realised that the local Aromanian dialect still had no way to distinguish "Macedonians" from "Bulgarians" and that the locals used the designation "Bulgarians" for both ethnic groups. [25]
Immigrants from Macedonia came to the United States in significant numbers during the early years of the 20th century. Until World War II almost all of them thought of themselves as Bulgarians and identified themselves as Bulgarians or Macedonian Bulgarians. Recently, however, for some this has begun to change. Although there are still perhaps 50,000 Macedonians who identify themselves as Bulgarians or Macedonian Bulgarians, a group of Macedonian Americans who identify themselves specifically as Macedonians is beginning to emerge as a result of developments in their Balkan homelands.
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The Aromanians are an ethnic group native to the southern Balkans who speak Aromanian, an Eastern Romance language. They traditionally live in central and southern Albania, south-western Bulgaria, northern and central Greece and North Macedonia, and can currently be found in central and southern Albania, south-western Bulgaria, south-western and eastern North Macedonia, northern and central Greece, southern Serbia and south-eastern Romania. An Aromanian diaspora living outside these places also exists. The Aromanians are known by several other names, such as "Vlachs" or "Macedo-Romanians".
The Megleno-Romanians, also known as Meglenites, Moglenite Vlachs or simply Vlachs, are an Eastern Romance ethnic group, originally inhabiting seven villages in the Moglena region spanning the Pella and Kilkis regional units of Central Macedonia, Greece, and one village, Huma, across the border in North Macedonia. These people live in an area of approximately 300 km2 in size. Unlike the Aromanians, the other Romance-speaking population in the same historic region, the Megleno-Romanians are traditionally sedentary agriculturalists, and not traditionally transhumants. Sometimes, the Megleno-Romanians are referred as "Macedo-Romanians" together with the Aromanians.
This article is about the history of the Aromanians. For the history of Northern Vlachs (Romanians), see History of Romania.
Macedonians are a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group native to the region of Macedonia in Southeast Europe. They speak Macedonian, a South Slavic language. The large majority of Macedonians identify as Eastern Orthodox Christians, who share a cultural and historical "Orthodox Byzantine–Slavic heritage" with their neighbours. About two-thirds of all ethnic Macedonians live in North Macedonia and there are also communities in a number of other countries.
The region of Macedonia is known to have been inhabited since Paleolithic times.
The Kruševo Republic was a short-lived political entity proclaimed in 1903 by rebels from the Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) in Kruševo during the anti-Ottoman Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising.
Kruševo is a town in North Macedonia. In Macedonian the name means the 'place of pear trees'. It is the highest town in North Macedonia and one of the highest in the Balkans, situated at an altitude of over 1350 m above sea level. The town of Kruševo is the seat of Kruševo Municipality. It is located in the western part of the country, overlooking the region of Pelagonia, 33 and 53 km from the nearby cities of Prilep and Bitola, respectively.
The name Macedonia is used in a number of competing or overlapping meanings to describe geographical, political and historical areas, languages and peoples in a part of south-eastern Europe. It has been a major source of political controversy since the early 20th century. The situation is complicated because different ethnic groups use different terminology for the same entity, or the same terminology for different entities, with different political connotations.
Macedonian nationalism is a general grouping of nationalist ideas and concepts among ethnic Macedonians that were first formed in the late 19th century among separatists seeking the autonomy of the region of Macedonia from the Ottoman Empire. The idea evolved during the early 20th century alongside the first expressions of ethnic nationalism among the Slavs of Macedonia. The separate Macedonian nation gained recognition during World War II when the Socialist Republic of Macedonia was created as part of Yugoslavia. Macedonian historiography has since established links between the ethnic Macedonians and various historical events and individual figures that occurred in and originated from Macedonia, which range from the Middle Ages up to the 20th century. Following the independence of the Republic of Macedonia in the late 20th century, issues of Macedonian national identity have become contested by the country's neighbours, as some adherents to aggressive Macedonian nationalism, called Macedonism, hold more extreme beliefs such as an unbroken continuity between ancient Macedonians, and modern ethnic Macedonians, and views connected to the irredentist concept of a United Macedonia, which involves territorial claims on a large portion of Greece and Bulgaria, along with smaller regions of Albania, Kosovo and Serbia.
Macedonian Americans are Americans of ethnic Macedonian heritage.
Macedonian Patriotic Organization (MPO) is a diaspora organization in the United States and Canada. It was founded in Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States, in 1922, by Macedonian Bulgarian immigrants originating mainly from Greek Macedonia. It was originally called the Macedonian Political Organization but changed its name to the current one in 1952.
The Aromanians in North Macedonia, also known as the Vlachs, are an officially recognised minority group of North Macedonia numbering some 9,695 people according to the 2002 census. They are concentrated in Kruševo, Štip, Bitola and Skopje.
Macedonians or Macedonian Bulgarians, sometimes also referred to as Macedono-Bulgarians, Macedo-Bulgarians, or Bulgaro-Macedonians are a regional, ethnographic group of ethnic Bulgarians, inhabiting or originating from the region of Macedonia. Today, the larger part of this population is concentrated in Blagoevgrad Province but much is spread across the whole of Bulgaria and the diaspora.
A cheta, in plural chetas, were irregular armed bands present throughout 19th century Ottoman Empire, particularly Anatolia and the Balkans. The members of the chetas were called chetniks.
Agia Paraskevi is a village and a community of the Meteora municipality. Before the 2011 local government reform it was part of the community of Aspropotamos, of which it was a communal district. Now Aspropotamos is a municiplal unit. The 2021 census recorded 30 permanent residents in the village. In the summer season the number expands considerably as former residents and other tourists come to vacation. The community of Agia Paraskevi covers an area of 29.641 km2.
Dolna Belica is a village in the municipality of Struga, North Macedonia.
Macedonia for the Macedonians is a slogan and political concept used during the first half of the 20th century in the region of Macedonia. It aimed to encompass all the nationalities in the area, into a separate supranational entity.
The Aromanian question, also sometimes known as the "Vlach question", refers to the historical and current division of the ethnic identity of the Aromanians, mostly with ones being pro-Greek, pro-Romanian or self-identified purely or primarily as Aromanian.
The Ullah millet was a separate millet within the Ottoman Empire. It was established by the Ottoman authorities for the Aromanians in 1905, during the rise of nationalism in the Ottoman Empire. Although the Megleno-Romanians are also sometimes called Vlachs, the Ullah millet was not intended for them.
The Aromanians in Bulgaria, commonly known as "Vlachs" and under several other names, are a non-recognized ethnic minority in the country. There are an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 Aromanians in Bulgaria, although estimates coming from Bulgarian Aromanians themselves raise this number to 6,000. They live in the Western Rhodopes, the Blagoevgrad, Pazardzhik, Plovdiv and Sofia provinces and in the city of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria itself. More precisely, the Aromanians of Bulgaria are concentrated in the villages of Anton and Dorkovo and on the cities and towns of Blagoevgrad, Dupnitsa, Peshtera, Rakitovo, Samokov, Sofia and Velingrad, as well as on parts of the aforementioned provinces located in the Balkan Mountains. Some also live on the towns of Bratsigovo and Pirdop and on the cities of Plovdiv and Pazardjik, as well as on the Rila mountain range.
