Macedonians or Macedonian Bulgarians ( bg, македонци or македонски българи), sometimes also referred to as Macedono-Bulgarians, Macedo-Bulgarians, or Bulgaro-Macedonians are a regional, ethnographic group of ethnic

Bulgarians Bulgarians ( bg, българи, Bǎlgari, ) are a nation and South Slavic ethnic group native to Bulgaria and the rest of Southeast Europe. Etymology Bulgarians derive their ethnonym from the Bulgars. Their name is not completely unders ...

, 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 Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...

and the diaspora.

History

The Slavic-speaking population in the region of Macedonia had been referred to both (by themselves and outsiders) as

, and that is how they were predominantly seen since 10th, up until the early 20th century. According to

Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...

, at the beginning of the 20th century the Macedonian Bulgarians constituted the majority of the population in the whole region of Macedonia, then part of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

. The functioning of the Bulgarian Exarchate then aimed specifically at differentiating the Bulgarian from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and Serbian populations on an ethnic and linguistic basis, providing the open assertion of a Bulgarian

national identity National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or to one or more nations. It is the sense of "a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language". National identity ...

. However one basic distinction between the political agendas of local intelligentsias was clear. The

Macedonian Greeks Macedonians ( el, Μακεδόνες, ''Makedónes''), also known as Greek Macedonians or Macedonian Greeks, are a regional and historical population group of ethnic Greeks, inhabiting or originating from the Macedonia (Greece), Greek region o ...

and Serbs followed, in general, the directives coming from their respective centers of national agitation, while by the Bulgarians the term ''Macedonian'' was acquiring the significance of a certain political loyalty, that progressively constructed a particular spirit of ''

regional In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...

'' identity. The Balkan Wars (1912–1913) and

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

(1914–1918) left Ottoman Macedonia divided between

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...

and

and resulted in significant changes in its ethnic composition. The immediate effect of the partition of Ottoman Macedonia were the nationalistic campaigns in areas under Greek and Serbian administration, which expelled Bulgarian churchmen and teachers and closed Bulgarian schools and churches. As a consequence a sizable part of the Slavic population of

and Serbian (later Yugoslav Macedonia), fled to Bulgaria or was resettled there by virtue of a population exchange agreements (

Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine The Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine (french: Traité de Neuilly-sur-Seine) required Bulgaria to cede various territories, after Bulgaria had been one of the Central Powers defeated in World War I. The treaty was signed on 27 November 1919 at Neuilly ...

, Politis-Kalfov Protocol). Within Greece, the Macedonian Slavs were designated "Slavophone Greeks", while within Serbia (later within

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

) they were officially treated as "South Serbs". In both countries, schools and the media were used to disseminate the national ideologies and identities, and also the languages, of the new ruling nations, the Greeks and the Serbs. These cultural measures were reinforced by steps to alter the composition of the population: Serb colonists were implanted in Yugoslav Macedonia, while in Greek Macedonia, the mass settlement of

Greek refugees Greek refugees is a collective term used to refer to the more than one million Greek Orthodox natives of Asia Minor, Thrace and the Black Sea areas who fled during the Greek genocide (1914-1923) and Greece's later defeat in the Greco-Turkish War ...

from

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The ...

definitively reduced the Slav population to minority status. Despite some attempts to differentiate a Slavic Macedonian identity from the Bulgarian one since the end of the 19th century, and despite the nebulous national consciousness of the mass of the Slavic population, most researchers agree that the bulk of the Slavic population in the region had a Bulgarian national identity until the early 1940s, when the Bulgarian troops, occupying most of the area, were greeted as liberators. Pro-Bulgarian feelings among the local Slavic population prevailed in Greece and Yugoslavia. After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

and Bulgarian withdrawal, on the base of the strong Macedonian ''regional'' identity a process of ethnogenesis started and distinct ''national'' Macedonian identity was formed.Europe since 1945
Encyclopedia by Bernard Anthony Cook. , p. 808. As a whole an appreciable Macedonian national consciousness prior to the 1940s did not exist. At that time even the political organization by the Slavic immigrants from the region of Macedonia, the Macedonian Patriotic Organization has also promoted the idea of Macedonian Slavs being Bulgarians. The nation-building process was politically motivated and later reinforced by strong ''Bulgarophobia'' and

Yugoslavism Yugoslavism, Yugoslavdom, or Yugoslav nationalism is an ideology supporting the notion that the South Slavs, namely the Bosniaks, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes, but also Bulgarians, belong to a single Yugoslav nati ...

. The new authorities began a policy of removing of any Bulgarian influence and creating a distinct Slavic consciousness that would inspire identification with Yugoslavia. With the proclamation of the new Socialist Republic of Macedonia, there were measures taken that would overcome the pro-Bulgarian feeling among the population. It has been claimed that from 1944 till the end of the 1940s people espousing a Bulgarian ethnic identity had been oppressed. According to Bulgarian sources more than 100,000 men were imprisoned and some 1,200 prominent Bulgarians were sentenced to death. In addition, the inconsistent policy towards the Macedonian Bulgarians followed by Communist Bulgaria at that time has thrown most independent observers ever since into a state of confusion, as to the real ethnicity of the population even in Bulgarian Macedonia. Practically as a consequence the rest of this people, with exception of Bulgaria proper, were eventually Macedonized or Hellenized. Nevertheless, people with Bulgarian consciousness or Bulgarophile sentiments still live in

North Macedonia North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Yugoslavia. It ...

and

. During the last years the EU membership of

has seen more than 50,000 Macedonians applying for

Bulgarian citizenship Bulgarian nationality law is governed by the Constitution of Bulgaria (article 25 and 26) of 1991 and the citizenship law of 1999 (with changes made in various years through to 2009). It is mainly based on jus sanguinis; however, it is possibl ...

. In order to obtain it they must sign a statement declaring they are ''Bulgarians by origin''. More than 90,000 Macedonian nationals have already received Bulgarian citizenship. However, this phenomenon can not give precise information about how many Macedonian nationals consider themselves Bulgarians in ethnic sense, because it is widely believed that this phenomenon is caused primarily for economic reasons.Michael Palairet, Macedonia: A Voyage through History (Vol. 2, From the Fifteenth Century to the Present), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016, , p. 347.

References

{{Greek Macedonia Ethnic groups in Macedonia (region) History of Macedonia (region) 20th century in Bulgaria Bulgaria–North Macedonia relations 01 People from Blagoevgrad Province Ethnic groups in Greece Demographics of the Ottoman Empire Slavic ethnic groups Macedonian people of Bulgarian descent South Slavs Bulgarians from the Ottoman Empire

History

See also

References