It has been 2 years since the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia officially changed its name to the Republic of North Macedonia. The name change has drawn mixed opinions at home and abroad. Its background goes back to antiquity and is intertwined with the histories of the Balkan states.

Since its independence in 1991, the country has long been at odds with neighboring Greece and Bulgaria over history and identity. The renaming of the country is one manifestation of that dispute. This article explores the contested concept of “Macedonia” and how it affects the political situation in the Balkans.

Skopje, the capital of the Republic of North Macedonia: Macedonia Square and the statue of Alexander III (Photo: dimitrisvetsikas1969 [Pixabay License])

History of Macedonia

First, we need to unpack the concept of “Macedonia.” Geographically, Macedonia refers to a transnational region in the central Balkans. Historically, the boundaries of the Macedonian region have changed many times, but in most cases it refers to areas inhabited by people who identify as “Macedonian.” Today, it is divided among three countries—Greece, Bulgaria, and the Republic of North Macedonia—but the name “Macedonia” itself goes back to ancient Greece.

In the 5th century BCE, the Kingdom of Macedonia is said to have existed in northeastern Greece. Later, in the 4th century BCE, Alexander III, also known as Alexander the Great, inherited the throne and greatly expanded the kingdom’s borders. After conquering Greece, Alexander III extended the Macedonian Empire to Persia and laid the foundations of the Hellenistic period, regarded as the zenith of ancient Greek culture. That said, the concepts of “Macedonia” and “Macedonians” in antiquity were ambiguous. The prevailing view is that when the Macedonian kingdom was founded, the royal family saw themselves as Greeks and adopted ancient Greek as the lingua franca. After the Hellenistic period, ancient Macedonians came to be regarded as part of the broader group of Greeks.

Created based on data from DW

After the death of Alexander III, the Macedonian Empire collapsed, but the kingdom survived with reduced territory. In the 2nd century BCE it came under the rule of the Roman Empire and became a Roman province. When the Roman Empire was divided into East and West in the 4th century, the province of Macedonia became part of the Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium.

In the 5th and 6th centuries, many Slavic migrants flowed in from Central Europe, greatly changing the ethnic composition of the Macedonian province. Thereafter, in the area around the Danube Delta in what is now northeastern Bulgaria, the Bulgars founded the Bulgarian Kingdom. The Bulgars conquered much of the Balkans, including Macedonia. The Slavs and Bulgars under their rule merged, forming the first Bulgarian identity. With the spread of Christianity and the work of Byzantine scholars in the 8th century to codify Slavic speech, the consolidation of a Bulgarian identity was accelerated. The script they codified became the basis of the Cyrillic alphabet now shared across Slavic languages. At that time, both Greek and Slavic populations lived in the Macedonian region.

In the medieval period, the Macedonian region came under the control of the Byzantine Empire and the Bulgarian Kingdom, but in the 15th century it became part of the Ottoman Empire along with the eastern and central Balkans. The newly conquered European territories of the Ottoman Empire were called the province of Rumelia (“land of the Romans”), and Orthodox Christians such as Greeks and Bulgarians living there were generally called the Rum Millet (※1). People belonging to the millet formed their identities based more on religion than on language or ethnicity.

An Orthodox church in Skopje (Photo: Pxfuel)

As the power of the Ottoman Empire waned in the 19th century, nationalist ideas spread within the Rum Millet, bringing several important changes across the Balkans. First, Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, and others established their own secular schools and built identities around language. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church and Serbian Orthodox Church became independent from the Greek Orthodox Church. As a result, Slavs in the Balkans could attend churches that preached in their own languages rather than Greek. Consequently, the concept of nationality began to emerge across the Balkans. In the 19th century, as a result of a series of uprisings and wars, the Kingdoms of Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria became independent from the Ottoman Empire. However, the Macedonian region remained within the empire.

In 1893, Slavic revolutionaries living in the Ottoman Macedonian region founded the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (VMRO), a political revolutionary organization aimed at the independence of Macedonia and its inhabitants. VMRO proclaimed that anyone living in the Macedonian region could join regardless of ethnicity or religion, but it was composed mainly of Bulgarians. Nevertheless, the establishment of VMRO fostered a new Macedonian identity distinct from Bulgarian and Greek identities, which had been defined along linguistic and religious lines.

VMRO staged a major uprising against the Ottoman Empire in 1903. Known as the Ilinden Uprising, it spread throughout the Macedonian region but was quickly suppressed by the Ottoman army. Afterward, VMRO split into a group that continued to push for Macedonian independence and a more radical group based in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, that sought annexation to Bulgaria.

In the 1910s, the Balkans were engulfed in several wars, including World War I, and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, which lost its territories outside modern-day Turkey, brought major changes throughout the region. In 1918, with the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which had ruled Central Europe, its southernmost lands, inhabited mainly by Slavs, merged with the Kingdom of Serbia to form the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which was established. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Macedonian region was also divided, with the territory corresponding to modern-day North Macedonia becoming part of Yugoslavia, the southern portion becoming part of Greece, and the northwest becoming part of Bulgaria. Under Yugoslavia, the territory corresponding to the Macedonian region was renamed South Serbia, and the language spoken there came to be regarded as a dialect of Serbian.

In 1946, after World War II, the Socialist Republic of Macedonia was established on the territory corresponding to modern-day North Macedonia as one of the 6 constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. With this, the Macedonian language was newly codified and disseminated through government, education, media, and the arts. The Macedonian Orthodox Church was also established, separate from the Serbian, Bulgarian, and Greek churches. This fostered a national consciousness in the new republic, while residents of the Macedonian region who fell within the borders of Greece and Bulgaria gradually assimilated into those respective nations.

A monument in North Macedonia commemorating the victims of the Ilinden Uprising (Photo: Bojan Rantaša / Flickr [CC BY-NC 2.0])

In the 1980s, Yugoslavia faced several economic and political crises, which led to the country’s dissolution in the 1990s and to the Yugoslav Wars. Amid this upheaval, following a 1991 referendum, the Socialist Republic of Macedonia separated peacefully from Yugoslavia as the Republic of Macedonia, but fearing that the conflicts that engulfed the former Yugoslavia would spill over into Macedonia, 1995 saw the deployment of a peacekeeping mission. No conflict erupted, and the peacekeeping mission ended in 1999.

The dispute over the name “Macedonia”

After the Republic of Macedonia became independent, Greece strongly opposed the use of the name “Macedonia” and refused to recognize it as a state. Greece argued that because “Macedonia” refers to the ancient Macedonian kingdom and to Greece’s own region of Macedonia, the new country—composed mainly of Slavs—had no right to use that name.

In 1993, the United Nations Security Council (※2) was debating the Republic of Macedonia’s admission to the UN. To sidestep the naming dispute with Greece, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom—members of the Council at the time—proposed renaming the country the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). Greece did not explicitly object to this proposal, but the Republic of Macedonia rejected it because it did not want to be associated with then-Yugoslavia. After further mediation by the Security Council, in April 1993 Macedonia was admitted to the UN under the name FYROM. Greece continued to refuse to recognize FYROM, and the dispute continued thereafter.

In 1994, Greece blocked the road to FYROM’s nearest seaport FYROM in an effort to force a name change. This action was criticized by the international community, and the United States and the European Union (EU) pressured Greece to resume diplomatic negotiations with FYROM. As a result, in 1995 the two countries signed an interim accord. Under this accord, Greece recognized FYROM as a state, and FYROM updated its flag so that it no longer included symbols of the ancient Macedonian kingdom. The accord also committed both countries to cooperate for economic growth and better diplomatic relations.

Since independence, FYROM has viewed membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) as a means to ensure national security and economic stability, making accession to these organizations a top priority of Macedonian foreign policy.

In 2015, FYROM’s Prime Minister Gruevski visits NATO (Photo: NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization / Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0])

In 2006, the right-wing nationalist party Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization – Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE) came to power in FYROM’s general election, and Nikola Gruevski became prime minister. Under the Gruevski administration, FYROM launched new infrastructure projects across the country, naming a highway and the international airport in the capital Skopje after “Alexander the Great.” Furthermore, a 22-meter-tall statue of Alexander the Great was erected in central Skopje. These actions were reportedly driven by the claim that the concept of “Macedonia,” including its history, belongs to their nation.

This series of moves by FYROM worsened relations with Greece. Greece viewed FYROM’s unilateral use of ancient Macedonian historical imagery as an attempt to appropriate and rewrite history. Relations deteriorated further when the FYROM government published a new edition of a history textbook called “The History of the Macedonian People,” which stated that FYROM citizens were not a Slavic people but direct descendants of the ancient Macedonians, further aggravating ties with Greece.

At the 2008 NATO summit, Greece, already a member of NATO, blocked FYROM’s accession over the name issue. In the same year, FYROM took Greece to the International Court of Justice, citing Article 11 of the 1995 Interim Accord, under which Greece had agreed not to obstruct FYROM’s membership in international organizations to which Greece already belonged. In 2011, the Court found that Greece had indeed violated the Interim Accord, but it could not compel Greece to refrain from obstructing FYROM’s future accessions. Consequently, FYROM’s accession to NATO was postponed until the name issue was resolved.

In 2016, after ten years in power, VMRO-DPMNE lost the general election, and Zoran Zaev of the more centrist Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) became prime minister and formed a government.

The Zaev administration was less antagonistic toward Greece than the Gruevski government and worked to resolve the name dispute. The new government changed the names of divisive monuments and public projects that had become contentious under Gruevski, signaling goodwill toward Greece. In 2018, Prime Minister Zaev met Greek Prime Minister Tsipras in Davos, Switzerland, to discuss the naming issue. This marked the resumption of bilateral talks after a three-year hiatus. Subsequent negotiations floated several names, including Republic of North Macedonia, Republic of New Macedonia, Republic of Upper Macedonia, and Republic of Macedonia–Skopje.

In June 2018, FYROM and Greece, building on the 1995 accord, reached a new agreement to resolve the naming dispute. The two sides agreed on the new name, Republic of North Macedonia (hereinafter “North Macedonia”). The agreement is known as the Prespa Agreement. In addition, both countries recognized Macedonian as part of the Slavic language family and acknowledged that their understandings of the concepts “Macedonia” and “Macedonians” reflect different historical backgrounds and cultural heritages. Acceptance of the agreement was put to a referendum in North Macedonia in October 2018, where it received 95% support.

Signing ceremony of the Prespa Agreement (Photo: European External Action Service / Flickr [CC BY-NC 2.0])

With the Prespa Agreement concluded, Greece lifted its opposition to North Macedonia’s NATO accession, and North Macedonia joined NATO in 2019. With the issue with Greece resolved, the country seemed poised to move forward under good-neighborly relations, but a dispute with another neighbor remained.

Deteriorating relations with Bulgaria

While NATO membership was expected to make North Macedonia’s path to the EU easier, cultural issues with Bulgaria became a new obstacle.

In March 2020, the EU decided to open accession talks with North Macedonia and Albania. However, in 11 of the same year, Bulgaria exercised its rights as an EU member state and vetoed North Macedonia’s accession over historical and linguistic issues. The Bulgarian government announced 20 conditions that North Macedonia must meet to join.

As already noted, Bulgaria and North Macedonia are historically closely connected. However, their historical interpretations differ. A particular point of contention is the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (VMRO), which fought the Ottoman Empire for the independence of the Macedonian region. Each country regards VMRO as its own, and the nationality of VMRO leader Goce Delchev has become the center of the dispute.

In the Bulgarian government’s view, the Slavic population of North Macedonia are Bulgarians, and North Macedonia’s history and national identity were constructed under Yugoslavia. In the published conditions, the Bulgarian government refers to the shared history with North Macedonia before 1944 as “our common history.”

The Bulgarian government also does not recognize Macedonian as a separate language. While linguists note that Macedonian and Bulgarian are indeed very similar, they argue that Macedonian has been codified and institutionalized and should be treated as distinct from Bulgarian. The Bulgarian government does not support this view, maintaining that Macedonian is, strictly speaking, a dialect of Bulgarian.

Another important condition concerns the status of the Bulgarian minority living in North Macedonia. Census data indicate that about 3,000 Bulgarians live in North Macedonia. The Bulgarian government, on the other hand, claims that the number is around 120,000, arguing that since Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007, many people from North Macedonia have applied for Bulgarian passports based on common ancestry. However, holders of an EU member state passport can move freely within the EU, so it is also possible that applicants from North Macedonia applied for economic rather than ethnic reasons.

The Bulgaria–Macedonia border (Photo: Jaime Jover / Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0])

The Bulgarian government has also demanded that the North Macedonian government add Bulgarians as a minority to the Preamble of North Macedonia’s Constitution, alongside Albanians, Turks, Vlachs, Roma, and other peoples already listed.

Through talks promoted by the EU, Bulgaria and North Macedonia have made some progress toward resolving cultural and historical issues. In 2021, 10, the Bulgarian government reduced the accession conditions from 20 to 6 and presented them again to North Macedonia. The conditions include issues related to history, language, hate speech by North Macedonians against Bulgarians, and mutual noninterference in each other’s internal affairs.

Alternatives to the EU

Bulgaria’s veto is not only a barrier to North Macedonia’s accession, but also an obstacle for Albania, which is seeking EU membership. The EU has linked Albania’s accession with North Macedonia’s, such that neither can proceed without the other. In this way, friction with Bulgaria is indirectly hindering Albania’s accession.

Similarly, while both Serbia and Kosovo are moving toward EU membership, Kosovo cannot join the EU until its political status is resolved. This issue stems from Serbia’s stance on Kosovo’s autonomy and the Kosovo War of 1998–1999. After NATO intervention, Kosovo effectively became independent from Serbia. In 2008, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia and was recognized as the Republic of Kosovo by many countries. Since then, relations have been tense, and EU accession talks have not progressed. The EU places importance on Serbia normalizing relations with Kosovo as a condition for accession. If friction continues and Serbia joins ahead of Kosovo, the same situation as between North Macedonia and Bulgaria could be repeated.

Serbia’s incumbent president Aleksandar Vučić (Photo: Belgrade Security Forum / Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0])

Serbia, Albania, and North Macedonia, unable to join the EU for now, have moved to create a regional union that would allow free movement and trade in place of the EU. This is called the “Open Balkans Initiative,” declared in 2021 by the leaders of the 3 countries . Modeled on the EU’s Schengen Agreement (※3), 3 countries’ citizens will be able to travel without passports, and border crossing times will be greatly reduced. Building regional cooperation and good-neighborly relations is a condition for EU accession, and the 3 countries hope the Open Balkans Initiative will help them meet that condition.

As expectations for EU accession wane among Western Balkan states, the organization’s influence is weakening, while Russia’s and China’s influence is arguably growing. Russian state media are trusted in the Western Balkans and continue to strongly criticize the EU on issues such as the Serbia–Kosovo dispute. China, for its part, is focusing on increasing its influence through cultural exchanges and economic cooperation.

Toward a resolution?

Although North Macedonia appears to have resolved its long-standing naming dispute with Greece, tensions with other neighbors remain. Continued cultural and historical friction with Bulgaria could fuel the spread of nationalist groups and ideas and undermine regional stability. The EU hoped in 2021 11 to restart mediation talks between North Macedonia and Bulgaria, but because the ruling SDSM suffered defeats in most municipalities in North Macedonia’s local elections, Prime Minister Zaev resigned, and the outlook for talks has become uncertain. At the time of writing, the opposition VMRO-DPMN is calling for snap elections, but no vote has been announced. With tensions in the Western Balkans rising again, we will continue to watch developments in North Macedonia and its neighboring countries.

※1 The millet system was a framework within the Ottoman Empire under which non-Muslim religious communities enjoyed autonomous self-governance.

※2 Admission to the UN requires a recommendation from the Security Council.

※3 The Schengen Agreement provides for movement without internal border controls and a common visa system among member states.

Writer: Yosif Ayanski

Graphics: Yosif Ayanski

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