Macedonia

Macedonia, country, Europe

Macedonia (măs'ədō`nēə), Macedonian Makedonija, officially Republic of Macedonia, republic (2005 est. pop. 2,045,000), 9,930 sq mi (25,720 sq km), SE Europe. It is bordered by Serbia on the north, Albania on the west, Greece on the south, and Bulgaria on the east. The capital and largest city is Skopje. The other main cities are Tetovo, Bitola (Bitolj), and Prilep. The United Nations and many nations recognize the country as the "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" (FYROM) because of Greek objections to the name Macedonia (see below).

Land and People

A predominately mountainous and landlocked country with deep river valleys, Macedonia is drained by the Vadar River, which runs through the center of the country, and its tributaries, including the Bregalnica, the Crna Reka, and the Treska rivers. Almost 40% of the country is forested, with a concentration of wooded areas in its western section. The climate is generally cold and snowy in the winter and hot and dry in the summer. Many earthquakes have been recorded in Macedonia.

Ethnic Macedonians constitute nearly two thirds of the population. The largest minority is Albanian, representing one fourth of the population and living largely in W Macedonia. There are smaller groups of Serbs, Turks, Greeks, Bulgarians, and other groups. About 65% of the people belong to the Eastern Orthodox Church, while 30% are Muslims and about 5% are non-Orthodox Christians. The predominant language is Macedonian, which is related to Bulgarian; Albanian is widely spoken by that minority.

Economy and Government

The poorest of the former Yugoslavian republics, Macedonia has a mostly agricultural economy. Grains, tobacco, and cotton are grown, and sheep and goats are raised. Iron, copper, and lead are mined. Manufacturing includes chemicals, steel, machinery, and textiles.

The emerging democracy is governed under the constitution of 1991, as amended in 2001. It has a 120-seat unicameral legislature, the Sobranie, whose members are elected for four-year terms by both single-seat constituencies and proportional representation. The executive consists of an elected president, aided by a council of ministers and a prime minister. Administratively, the country is divided into 123 municipalities.

History

For Macedonian history prior to independence, see Macedon, Macedonia, region, and Yugoslavia.

After the elections of 1990 that put in place Yugoslav Macedonia's first non-Communist government, the Yugoslavian federation began to disintegrate. Macedonia declared its independence in Sept., 1991. However, the new nation's sovereignty was not immediately recognized by the international community, largely due to Greek protests over the name Macedonia. Greece, fearing future territorial claims, wanted to further the distinction between Macedonia and Greek Macedonia. There were also tensions with Bulgaria, which recognized the new nation but had historically regarded the area as Bulgarian.

In 1993, Macedonia was admitted to the United Nations under the provisional name of "The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" (FYROM). The United States recognized the new nation under the provisional name in 1994. Greece, however, imposed an economic blockade on the landlocked country, which already was suffering from international sanctions imposed on its biggest trading partner, Serb-dominated Yugoslavia. Greece lifted the sanctions in 1995, after Macedonia had agreed to certain conditions, including a modification of its flag and a renunciation of any territorial claims against Greece. By the end of the decade, relations with Greece and Bulgaria had improved significantly, and in 2001 the former Yugoslavia and Macedonia signed an agreement demarcating what is now the Serbia-Macedonia border.

In 1994, Kiro Gligorov was reelected president in an election boycotted by the nationalist opposition. In Oct., 1995, he was gravely injured in an assassination attempt. In June, 1996, the parliament suspended the constitution and repudiated opposition calls for a referendum on holding new elections. Following elections held in 1998, a center-right coalition government was formed that included members of the Albanian minority. In the presidential election in late 1999, the center-right candidate, Boris Trajkovski, won, but the result was tainted by fraud in some areas and was denounced by his opponent. The election was partially rerun in December, and vote-rigging again occurred, but it appeared irrelevant to the outcome, as it occurred in areas strongly supportive of Trajkovski.

Macedonia has been shaken by tensions between ethnic Macedonians and the Albanian minority, which were aggravated by the influx of Kosovar Albanian refugees in 1999 (see Kosovo). Isolated incidents of violence in 1999 and 2000 became sustained battling between Macedonian forces and Albanian rebels in 2001. Although the fighting was limited, it threatened to polarize further the nation's two main ethnic groups.

An accord ending the fighting was brokered by the European Union and the United States and signed in Aug., 2001. It called for NATO troops to disarm the Albanian rebels and for the parliament to establish Albanian as a semiofficial language and guarantee the political, cultural, and religious rights of ethnic Albanians. The rebels were disarmed, the constitution subsequently amended (although some Macedonian Slav politicians opposed the changes), and an amnesty enacted for ethnic Albanian guerrillas.

Elections in Sept., 2002, resulted in a near majority in parliament for the Slav-dominated center-left Together for Macedonia coalition and a sizable vote for the Democrat Union for Integration, an Albanian party dominated by the disarmed rebels. A coalition goverment including both groups was formed, and Social Democrat Branko Crvenkovski became prime minister. In Mar., 2003, European Union forces were deployed as peacekeepers in Macedonia, replacing the NATO force. President Trajkovski was killed in a plane crash in Feb., 2004. In April Prime Minister Crvenkovski was elected to succeed him, and Hari Kostov became prime minister in June.

Legislation redrawing municipal boundaries and giving more power to local councils, actions that were regarded as favoring ethnic Albanians, sparked riots in July, 2004, but was passed the next month. In Nov., 2004, a referendum on overturning the laws failed when too few Macedonians voted; the government had called for a boycott of the vote. Kostov subsequently resigned, asserting that minority rights issues were overshadowing needed reforms; Vlado Buckovski succeeded him as prime minister in December. In July, 2006, the center-right Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization–Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE) won a plurality of seats in parliament, ousting the Social Democrats from power, but necessitating a coalition with the Democratic Party of Albanians and other parties. Nikola Gruevski, of the VMRO-DPMNE, became prime minister. The election was marred by some intimidation and ballot-stuffing, but was mainly free and fair.

---

Macedonia, region, Europe

Macedonia (măs'ədō`nēə), region, SE Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula, divided among Greece, Bulgaria, and the Republic of Macedonia.

Land and People

Corresponding roughly with ancient Macedon, it extends from the Aegean Sea northward between Epirus in the west and Thrace in the east and includes the Vardar, Struma, and Mesta (in Greece, the Axiós, Strimón, and Néstos) river valleys. The region is predominately mountainous, encompassing parts of the Pindus and Rhodope mts. Tobacco is the main crop; grains and cotton are also grown, and sheep and goats are raised. The mining of iron, copper, lead, and chromite is important.

Greek, or Aegean, Macedonia (c.13,000 sq mi/33,670 sq km) includes the Khalkidhikí (Chalcidice) peninsula, the site of Thessaloníki (Salonica), a major industrial and shipping center. As a result of population movements after World War I, Greek Macedonia has a largely homogeneous Greek population. Bulgarian, or Pirin, Macedonia is largely coextensive with the Blagoevgrad (formerly Gorna Dzhumaya) province of Bulgaria (c.2,500 sq mi/6,475 sq km) and is largely populated by Macedonians. The inhabitants of the Republic of Macedonia are largely Macedonian, but there is a sizable Albanian minority.

History

Early History through Ottoman Rule

Like neighboring Thrace and Epirus, Macedonia has been, since the early Middle Ages, a meeting place of nations, a fact that has contributed in large measure to its complex and turbulent history. Macedonians first appear historically about 700 B.C. By about 400 B.C., they had adopted the Greek language and had begun to build a kingdom (Macedon) that was greatly enlarged by the conquests of Philip II (359–336 B.C.) and Alexander the Great

Youth and Kingship

.....  (336–323 B.C.). In the 2d cent. B.C., Macedonia became a Roman province.

With the division (A.D. 395) of the Roman Empire, Macedonia came under Byzantine rule. Devastated by the Goths and Huns, it was settled (6th cent.) by the Slavs, who quickly made most of Macedonia a Slavic land. However, it continued under intermittent Byzantine domination until the 9th cent., when most of Macedonia was wrested from the Byzantine Empire by Bulgaria. Emperor Basil II recovered it (1014–18) for Byzantium, but after the temporary breakup (1204) of the Byzantine Empire during the Fourth Crusade, Macedonia was bitterly contested among the Latin Empire of Constantinople, the Bulgars under Ivan II, the despots of Epirus, and the emperors of Nicaea. It again became part of the Byzantine Empire, which was restored in 1261, but in the 14th cent. Stephen Dušan of Serbia conquered all Macedonia except for present-day Thessaloníki.

The fall of the Serbian empire in the late 14th cent. brought Macedonia under the rule of the Ottoman Turks, which lasted for five centuries. In the 19th cent. the national revival in the Balkans began; national and religious antagonism flared, and conflict was heightened by the Ottoman policy of playing one group against the other. Meanwhile the Ottoman Empire lost control over the major sections of Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria, each of which claimed Macedonia on historical or ethnical grounds. In the Treaty of San Stefano (1878), which terminated the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, Bulgaria was awarded the lion's share of Macedonia. However, the settlement was nullified by the European powers in the same year (see Berlin, Congress of), and Macedonia was left under direct Ottoman control.

Modern History

A secret terrorist organization working for Macedonian independence sprang up in the late 19th cent. and soon wielded great power. The komitadjis, as the terrorist bands were called, were generally supported by Bulgaria, which gained a major share of Macedonia in the first of the Balkan Wars (1912–13). Greece and Serbia turned against Bulgaria in the Second Balkan War, and the Treaty of Bucharest (1913) left Bulgaria only a small share of Macedonia, the rest of which was divided roughly along the present lines. Thousands of Macedonians fled to Bulgaria.

In World War I the Salonica (present-day Thessaloníki) campaigns took place in Macedonia. After the war Macedonia became a hotbed of agitation and terrorism, directed largely from Bulgaria. The population exchange among Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria after 1923 resulted in the replacement by Greek refugees from Asia Minor of most of the Slavic and Turkish elements in Greek Macedonia. Charging that the Greek minority in Bulgarian Macedonia was being mistreated, Greece in 1925 invaded Bulgaria. The League of Nations, however, forced a cession of hostilities and awarded (1926) a decision favorable to Bulgaria.

Bulgarian relations with Yugoslavia (before 1929 the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes) remained strained over the Macedonian question. Frontier incidents were frequent, as were Yugoslav charges against Bulgaria for fostering the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), a nationalist group that used violence, in Yugoslavia. Macedonian agitation against Serbian rule culminated (1934) in the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia by a Macedonian nationalist at Marseilles.

In World War II all Macedonia was occupied (1941–44) by Bulgaria, which sided with the Axis against Yugoslavia and Greece. The Bulgarian armistice treaty of 1944 restored the prewar boundaries, which were confirmed in the peace treaty of 1947. The Yugoslav constitution of 1946 made Yugoslav Macedonia an autonomous unit in a federal state, and the Macedonian people were recognized as a separate nationality.

Tension over Macedonia continued in the early postwar years. During the Greek civil war there was much conflict between Greece and Yugoslavia over Macedonia, and the breach between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria after 1948 helped to make the Macedonian question explosive. However, with the settlement of the civil war and with the easing of Yugoslav-Bulgarian relations after 1962, tension over Macedonia was reduced. In 1990, Yugoslav Macedonia elected its first non-Communist government and the following year the Republic of Macedonia was born.

Bibliography

See H. N. Brailsford, Macedonia: Its Races and Their Future (1971); H. Lydall, Yugoslavia in Crisis (1989).

---

Macedonia

 officially Republic of Macedonia

Country, Balkan Peninsula, southeastern Europe. Area: 9,928 sq mi (25,713 sq km). Population (2005 est.): 2,034,000. Capital: Skopje. About two-thirds of the population are Macedonians, and about one-fourth are Albanians. Languages: Macedonian, Albanian. Religions: Christianity (predominantly Eastern Orthodox; also Roman Catholic), Islam. Currency: denar. Located on a high plateau studded with mountains, Macedonia is one of the poorest countries in Europe. Although its importance has diminished recently, agriculture remains central to the economy, with tobacco, fruit, vegetables, and wine notable. Sheepherding is also significant. The manufacturing base includes iron and steel, textiles, and chemicals and chemical products. Macedonia is a republic with one legislative house; its head of state is the president, and the head of government is the prime minister. The Macedonian region has been inhabited since before 7000 BC. Under Roman rule, part of the region was incorporated into the province of Moesia in AD 29. It was settled by Slavic tribes by the mid-6th century and was Christianized during the 9th century. Seized by the Bulgarians in 1185, it was ruled by the Ottoman Empire from 1371 to 1912. The north and centre of the region were annexed by Serbia in 1913 and became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia) in 1918. When Yugoslavia was partitioned by the Axis Powers in 1941, Yugoslav Macedonia was occupied principally by Bulgaria. Macedonia once again became a republic of Yugoslavia in 1946. After Croatia and Slovenia seceded from Yugoslavia, fear of Serbian dominance prompted Macedonia to declare its independence in 1991. In deference to Greece, which also has an area traditionally known as Macedonia, the country joined the United Nations in 1993 under the name The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and normalized relations with Greece in 1995. Ethnic strife has periodically endangered national stability—e.g., in 2001, when pro-Albanian rebel forces in the north, near the Kosovo border, led guerrilla attacks on government forces.

---

Macedonia

1. a country in SE Europe, comprising the NW half of ancient Macedon: it became part of the kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (subsequently Yugoslavia) in 1913; it declared independence in 1992, but Greece objected to the use of the historical name Macedonia; in 1993 it was recognized by the UN under its current official name. Official language: Macedonian. Religion: Christian majority, Muslim, nonreligious, and Jewish minorities. Currency: denar. Capital: Skopje. Pop.: 2 066 000 (2004 est.). Area: 25 713 sq. km (10 028 sq. miles). Oficial name: Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM)

2. an area of N Greece, comprising the regions of Macedonia Central, Macedonia West, and part of Macedonia East and Thrace

3. a district of SW Bulgaria, now occupied by Blagoevgrad province. Area: 6465 sq. km (2496 sq. miles)