Ancient and Roman period In antiquity, much of central-northern
Macedonia (the
Vardar basin) was inhabited by
Paionians who expanded from the lower Strymon basin. The Pelagonian plain was inhabited by the
Pelagones and the
Lyncestae,
ancient Greek tribes of
Upper Macedonia; whilst the western region (Ohrid-Prespa) was said to have been inhabited by
Illyrian tribes, such as the
Enchelae. During the late Classical Period, having already developed several sophisticated
polis-type settlements and a thriving economy based on mining,
Paeonia became subject to
Philip II of Macedon, while its southern part was later incorporated into the kingdom of
Macedon ('Macedonian Paeonia'). In 310 BC, the
Celts attacked deep into the south, subduing various local tribes, such as the
Dardanians, the Paeonians and the
Triballi.
Roman conquest brought with it a significant
Romanization of the region. During the
Dominate period, '
barbarian'
foederati were settled on Macedonian soil at times; such as the
Sarmatians settled by
Constantine the Great (330s AD) or the (10 year) settlement of
Alaric I's
Goths. In contrast to 'frontier provinces', Macedonia (north and south) continued to be a flourishing Christian, Roman province in
Late Antiquity and into the
Early Middle Ages.
Medieval period Linguistically, the South Slavic languages from which Macedonian developed are thought to have expanded in the region during the post-Roman period, although the exact mechanisms of this linguistic expansion remains a matter of scholarly discussion. Traditional historiography has equated these changes with the commencement of raids and 'invasions' of
Sclaveni and
Antes from
Wallachia and western Ukraine during the 6th and 7th centuries. However, recent anthropological and archaeological perspectives have viewed the appearance of
Slavs in Macedonia, and throughout the
Balkans in general, as part of a broad and complex process of transformation of the cultural, political and ethnolinguistic Balkan landscape before the collapse of Roman authority. The exact details and chronology of population shifts remain to be determined. What is beyond dispute is that, in contrast to "barbarian" Bulgaria, northern Macedonia remained
Roman in its cultural outlook into the 7th century. Apart from Slavs and late Byzantines,
Kuver's "
Sermesianoi" – a mix of c. 70,000
Byzantine Greeks predominantly, also
Bulgars and
Pannonian Avars – settled the "Keramissian plain" (
Pelagonia) around
Bitola in the late 7th century. Later pockets of settlers included "Danubian"
Bulgarians in the 9th century;
Magyars (Vardariotai) and
Armenians in the 10th–12th centuries,
Cumans and
Pechenegs in the 11th–13th centuries, and
Saxon miners in the 14th and 15th centuries. Vlachs (Aromanians) and Arbanasi (Albanians) also inhabited this area in the Middle Ages and mingeled with the local Slavic-speakers. Having previously been Byzantine clients, the
Sklaviniae of Macedonia switched their allegiance to the Bulgarians with their incorporation into the
Bulgarian Empire in the mid-800s. In the 860s, Byzantine missionaries
Cyril and Methodius created the
Glagolitic alphabet and Slavonic liturgy based on the Slavic dialect around
Thessaloniki for a mission to
Great Moravia. After the demise of the Great Moravian mission in 886, exiled students of the two
apostles brought the Glagolitic alphabet to the
Bulgarian Empire, where Khan
Boris I of Bulgaria () welcomed them. As part of his efforts to limit Byzantine influence and assert Bulgarian independence, he adopted Slavic as official ecclesiastical and state language and established the
Preslav Literary School and
Ohrid Literary School, which taught Slavonic liturgy and the Glagolitic and subsequently the
Cyrillic alphabet. The success of Boris I's efforts was a major factor in making the Slavs in Macedonia—and the other Slavs within the
First Bulgarian State—adopt the common
demonym Bulgarians and transforming the Bulgar state into a Bulgarian state.
Ottoman period After the final Ottoman conquest of the Balkans by the Ottomans in the 14th/15th century, all Eastern Orthodox Christians were included in a specific ethno-religious community under
Graeco-Byzantine jurisdiction called
Rum Millet. Belonging to this religious commonwealth was so important that most of the common people began to identify themselves as
Christians. However, ethnonyms never disappeared and some form of primary ethnic identity was available. This is confirmed from a Sultan's
Firman from 1680 which describes the ethnic groups in the Balkan territories of the Empire as follows: Greeks, Albanians, Serbs, Vlachs and Bulgarians. Throughout the Middle Ages and Ottoman rule up until the early 20th century the Slavic-speaking population majority in the region of
Macedonia were more commonly referred to (both by themselves and outsiders) as
Bulgarians. However, in pre-nationalist times, terms such as "Bulgarian" did not possess a strict ethno-nationalistic meaning, rather, they were loose, often interchangeable terms which could simultaneously denote regional habitation, allegiance to a particular empire, religious orientation, membership in certain social groups. Similarly, a "Byzantine" was a
Roman subject of Constantinople, and the term bore no strict ethnic connotations, Greek or otherwise. Overall, in the Middle Ages, "a person's origin was distinctly regional", and in the
Ottoman era, before the 19th-century
rise of nationalism, it was based on the corresponding
confessional community. The
rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century brought opposition to this continued situation. At that time, the classical Rum Millet began to degrade. The coordinated actions, carried out by Bulgarian national leaders and supported by the majority of the Slavic-speaking population in today's Republic of North Macedonia (the second anti-Greek revolt was in Skopje) to have a separate "
Bulgarian Millet", finally bore fruit in 1870 when a
firman for the creation of the
Bulgarian Exarchate was issued. In June 1870, the Macedonian side expressed openly and clearly its views on how the Exarchist Church should be governed in order for the Macedonians to join it, because "...the high mercy was not promised exclusively to the Bulgarians, but the same was promised also to the Macedonians...". The realization of this possibility, according to the article published in the Bulgarian newspaper
Makedoniya, was conditioned by the promotion of democratic principles in the religious relations between the Macedonian and Bulgarian communities. Otherwise, the determination for centralism—referred to in the article as "despotism"—would open to the public the issue of the "Macedonian Question". The anonymous author argued: "We broke away from the Greeks; shall we fall under others?" In September 1872, the Ecumenical Patriarch
Anthimus VI declared the Exarchate schismatic and
excommunicated its adherents, accusing them of having "surrendered Orthodoxy to ethnic nationalism", i.e., "
ethnophyletism" (). At the time of its creation, the only Vardar Macedonian bishopric included in the Exarchate was
Veles. However, in 1874, the Christian population of the
bishoprics of
Skopje and
Ohrid were given the chance to participate in a plebiscite, where they voted overwhelmingly in favour of joining the Exarchate (Skopje by 91%, Ohrid by 97%) Referring to the results of the plebiscites, and on the basis of statistical and ethnological indications, the
1876 Conference of Constantinople included all of present-day North Macedonia (except for the Debar region) and parts of present-day Greek Macedonia. The borders of new Bulgarian state, drawn by the 1878
Treaty of San Stefano, also included Macedonia, but the treaty was never put into effect and the
Treaty of Berlin (1878) "returned" Macedonia to the Ottoman Empire. For Christian Slav peasants, however, the choice between the Patriarchate and the Exarchate was not tainted with national meaning, but was a choice of Church or millet, and unsurprisingly the majority preferred the Slavic (Bulgarian) Church over the non-Slavic
Greek one. Furthermore, adherence to the Bulgarian national cause was attractive as a means of opposing oppressive Christian
chiflik owners and urban merchants, who usually identified with the Greek nation, as a way to escape arbitrary taxation by
Patriarchate bishops, via shifting allegiance to the
Exarchate and on account of the free (and, occasionally, even subsidized) provision of education in Bulgarian schools. Alignment of the Slavs of Macedonia with the Bulgarian, the Greek or sometimes the Serbian national camp did not imply adherence to different national ideologies: these camps were not stable, culturally distinct groups, but parties with national affiliations, described by contemporary observers as "sides", "wings", "parties" or "political clubs". Considering all of the previous circumstances, it is possible to argue that the Macedonian Slavs formed a separate nationality.
Identity is the first known person, who in 1875 put forward the idea on the existence of a separate (Slavic) Macedonian language and ethnicity. The first expressions of
Macedonian nationalism occurred in the second half of the 19th century mainly among intellectuals in
Belgrade,
Sofia,
Thessaloniki and
St. Petersburg. Since the 1850s some Slavic intellectuals from the area adopted the Greek designation
Macedonian as a regional label, and it began to gain popularity. In the 1860s, according to
Petko Slaveykov in his newspaper
Makedoniya, some young intellectuals from Macedonia were claiming that they are not Bulgarians, but rather Macedonians, descendants of the Ancient Macedonians. In a letter written to the Bulgarian Exarch in February 1874 Petko Slaveykov reports that discontent with the current situation "has given birth among local patriots to the disastrous idea of working independently on the advancement of their
own local dialect and what's more, of their own, separate Macedonian church leadership." The activities of these people were also registered by the Serbian politician
Stojan Novaković, who promoted the idea to use the
Macedonian nationalism in order to oppose the strong pro-Bulgarian sentiments in the area. The nascent Macedonian nationalism, illegal at home in the theocratic Ottoman Empire, and illegitimate internationally, waged a precarious struggle for survival against overwhelming odds: in appearance against the Ottoman Empire, but in fact against the three expansionist Balkan states and their respective patrons among the
Great Powers. The first known author that overtly speaks of a Macedonian nationality and language was
Gjorgjija Pulevski, who in 1875 published in Belgrade a
Dictionary of Three languages: Macedonian, Albanian, Turkish, in which he wrote that the Macedonians are a separate nation and the place which is theirs is called Macedonia. In 1880, he published in Sofia a
Grammar of the language of the Slavic Macedonian population, a work that is today known as the first attempt at a grammar of Macedonian. In 1885,
Theodosius of Skopje, a priest who held a high-ranking position within the
Bulgarian Exarchate, was chosen as a bishop of the
episcopacy of
Skopje. In 1890 he renounced de facto the Bulgarian Exarchate and attempted to restore the
Archbishopric of Ohrid as a separate Macedonian Orthodox Church in all eparchies of
Macedonia, responsible for the spiritual, cultural and educational life of all Macedonian Orthodox Christians, as he considered that there was an ethnic difference between Macedonians and their Orthodox Christian neighbors. In the 1880s and 1890s,
Isaija Mažovski designated Macedonian Slavs as "Macedonians" and "Old Slavic Macedonian people", and also distinguished them from Bulgarians as follows: "Slavic-Bulgarian" for Mažovski was synonymous with "Macedonian", while only "Bulgarian" was a designation for the Bulgarians in Bulgaria. In 1890, Austrian researcher of Macedonia Karl Hron reported that the Macedonians constituted a separate ethnic group by history and language. Within the next few years, this concept was also welcomed in Russia by linguists including
Leonhard Masing,
Pyotr Lavrov,
Jan Baudouin de Courtenay, and
Pyotr Draganov. Draganov, of Bulgarian descent, conducted research in Macedonia and determined that the local language had its own identifying characteristics compared to Bulgarian and Serbian. He wrote in a Saint Petersburg newspaper that the Macedonians should be recognized by Russia in a full national sense.
Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee leader
Boris Sarafov in 1901 stated that Macedonians had a unique "national element" and, the following year, he stated "We the Macedonians are neither Serbs nor Bulgarians, but simply Macedonians... Macedonia exists only for the Macedonians."
Gyorche Petrov, another IMRO member, stated Macedonia was a "distinct moral unit" with its own "aspirations", while describing its Slavic population as Bulgarian.
National antagonisms and Macedonian separatism Macedonian separatism in 1903 attempted to codify a standard Macedonian language and appealed for eventual recognition of a separate Macedonian nation when the necessary historical circumstances would arise. In 1903,
Krste Misirkov published in Sofia his book
On Macedonian Matters, wherein he laid down the principles of the modern Macedonian nationhood and language. This book, written in the standardized
central dialect of Macedonia, is considered by ethnic Macedonians as a milestone of the process of Macedonian awakening. Misirkov argued that the dialect of central Macedonia (Veles-Prilep-Bitola-Ohrid) should be adopted as a basis for a standard Macedonian literary language, in which Macedonians should write, study, and worship; the autocephalous
Archbishopric of Ohrid should be restored; and the Slavic people of Macedonia should be recognized as a separate ethnic community, when the necessary historical circumstances would arise. Another major figure of the Macedonian awakening was
Dimitrija Čupovski, one of the founders of the
Macedonian Literary Society, established in
Saint Petersburg in 1902. One of the members was also Krste Misirkov. In 1905 the Society published
Vardar, the first scholarly, scientific and literary journal in the central dialects of Macedonia, which later would contribute in the standardization of
Macedonian language. In 1913, the Macedonian Literary Society submitted the
Memorandum of Independence of Macedonia to the British Foreign Secretary and other European ambassadors, and it was printed in many European newspapers. In the period 1913–1914, Čupovski published the newspaper
Македонскi Голосъ (Macedonian Voice) in which he and fellow members of the Saint Petersburg Macedonian Colony propagated the existence of a Macedonian people separate from the Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbs, and sought to popularize the idea for an independent Macedonian state.
The "Macedonian Slavs" in cartography From 1878 until 1918, most independent European observers viewed the
Slavs of Macedonia as Bulgarians or as Macedonian Slavs, while their association with Bulgaria was almost universally accepted. Original manuscript versions of population data mentioned "Macedonian Slavs", though the term was changed to "Bulgarians" in the official printing. Western publications usually presented the Slavs of Macedonia as Bulgarians, as happened, partly for political reasons, in Serbian ones. Prompted by the publication of a Serbian map by
Spiridon Gopčević claiming the Slavs of Macedonia as
Serbs, a version of a Russian map, published in 1891, in a period of deterioration of
Bulgarian-Russian relations, first presented Macedonia inhabited not by Bulgarians, but by Macedonian Slavs. Austrian-Hungarian maps followed suit in an effort to delegitimize the ambitions of Russophile Bulgaria, returning to presenting the Macedonian Slavs as Bulgarians when Austria-Bulgaria relations ameliorated, only to renege and employ the designation "Macedonian Slavs" when Bulgaria changed its foreign policy and Austria turned to envisaging an autonomous Macedonia under Austrian influence within the
Murzsteg process. The term "Macedonian Slavs" was used either as a middle solution between conflicting Serbian and Bulgarian claims, to denote an intermediary grouping of Slavs, associated with the Bulgarians, or to describe a separate Slavic group with no ethnic, national or political affiliation. Influenced by the conclusions of the research of young Serb
Jovan Cvijić, that Macedonia's culture combined
Byzantine influence with Serbian traditions, a map of 1903 by Austrian cartographer
Karl Peucker depicted Macedonia as a peculiar area, where zones of linguistic influence overlapped. In his first ethnographic map of 1906, Cvijic presented all Slavs of Serbia and Macedonia merely as "Slavs". In a pamphlet translated and circulated in Europe the same year, he elaborated his ostensibly impartial views and described the Slavs living south of the
Babuna and
Plačkovica mountains as "Macedo-Slavs" arguing that the appellation "Bugari" meant simply "peasant" to them, that they had no national consciousness and could become Serbs or Bulgarians in the future. Cvijić thus transformed the political character of the
IMRO's appeals to "Macedonians" into an ethnic one. Bulgarian cartographer
Anastas Ishirkov countered Cvijić's views, pointing to the involvement of Macedonian Slavs in Bulgarian nationalist uprisings and the Macedonian origins of Bulgarian nationalists before 1878. Although Cvijic's arguments attracted the attention of Great Powers, they did not endorse at the time his view on the Macedo-Slavs. File:Ethnographic map of the central Balkans, ca. 1900.png|Austrian ethnographic map of the vilayets of Kosovo, Saloniki, Scutari, Janina and Monastir, ca. 1900. File:Cvijic map 1909.jpg|Ethnographic map of the Balkans from the Serbian author Jovan Cvijić (1909) File:Ethnographic Map of Central and South Eastern Europe.jpg|Ethnographical Map of Central and Southeastern Europe -
War Office, London (1916) File:Hellenism in the Near East 1918.jpg|Greek map by Georgios Sotiriadis submitted to the Paris Peace Conference (1919) File:Macedonians coloured on this map from 1922.jpg|Ethnographic map of the Balkans in the
New Larned History (1922) Cvijić further elaborated the idea that had first appeared in Peucker's map and in his map of 1909 he ingeniously mapped the Macedonian Slavs as a third group distinct from Bulgarians and Serbians, and part of them "under Greek influence". Envisioning a future agreement with Greece, Cvijic depicted the southern half of the Macedo-Slavs "under Greek unfluence", while leaving the rest to appear as a subset of the Serbo-Croats. but, reflecting the reorientation of Serbian aims towards dividing Macedonia with Greece, Cvijić eliminated the Macedo-Slavs from a subsequent edition of his map. However, in 1913, before the conclusion of the
Treaty of Bucharest he published his third ethnographic map distinguishing the Macedo-Slavs between
Skopje and
Salonica from both Bulgarians and
Serbo-Croats, on the basis of the transitional character of their dialect per the linguistic researches of
Vatroslav Jagić and
Aleksandar Belić, and the Serb features of their customs, such as the
zadruga. For Cvijić, the Macedo-Slavs were a transitional population, with any sense of nationality they displayed being weak, superficial, externally imposed and temporary. Despite arguing that they should be considered neutral, he postulated their division into Serbs and Bulgarians based on dialectical and cultural features in anticipation of Serbian demands regarding the delimitation of frontiers. A Balkan committee of experts rejected Cvijić's concept of the Macedo-Slavs in 1914. However, Bulgaria's entry into World War I on the side of the
Central Powers in 1915, after the Allies failed to convince Serbia to hand over the
Uncontested Zone in Macedonia to Bulgaria, precipitated a complete turnaround in the Allies' opinion of Macedonian ethnography, and several British and French maps echoing Cvijić were released within months. Thus, as the
Entente approached victory in the
First World War, a number other maps and atlases, including those produced by the
Allies replicated Cvijić's ideas, especially its depiction of the Macedo-Slavs. The prevalence of the
Yugoslav point of view, obliged
Georgios Sotiriades, a professor of history at the
University of Athens, to map the Macedo-Slavs as a distinct group in his work of 1918, that mirrored Greek views of the time and was used as an official document to advocate for Greece's positions in the
Paris peace conference. After World War I, Cvijić's map became the point of reference for all Balkan ethnographic maps, while his concept of Macedo-Slavs was reproduced in almost all maps,
Macedonian nationalism in the interwar period After the
Balkan Wars (1912–1913) and the World War I (1914–1918), following the division of the region of
Macedonia amongst the
Kingdom of Greece, the
Kingdom of Bulgaria and the
Kingdom of Serbia, the idea of belonging to a separate Macedonian nation was further spread among the Slavic-speaking population. The suffering during the wars, the endless struggle of the Balkan monarchies for dominance over the population increased the Macedonians' sentiment that the institutionalization of an independent Macedonian nation would put an end to their suffering. On the question of whether they were Serbs or Bulgarians, the people more often started answering: "Neither Bulgar, nor Serb... I am Macedonian only, and I'm sick of war."
Stratis Myrivilis noted a specific instance of a Slav-speaking family wanting to be referred to, not as
"Bulgar, Srrp, or Grrts", but as
"Makedon ortodox". By the 1920s, following a negative reaction to the national proselytization of the previous decades, a majority of Christian
Slavs inhabiting Greek and
Vardar Macedonia used the collective name "Macedonians" to describe themselves, either as a nation or as a distinct ethnicity. The 1928 Greek census recorded 81,844
Slavo-Macedonian speakers, distinct from 16,755 Bulgarian speakers. In 1924 the
Politis–Kalfov Protocol was signed between Greece and Bulgaria, concerning the protection of the Bulgarian minority In Greece. However, it was not ratified by the Greek side, because public opinion stood against the recognition of any "Bulgarian" minority". Prior to the 1930s, "it seems to have been acceptable" for Greeks to refer to Slavs of Macedonia as Macedonians and their language as Macedonian,
Ion Dragoumis had argued this viewpoint. played a crucial role in the adoption of the
Resolution of the Comintern on the Macedonian question that, for the first time by an international organization, recognized the existence of a separate Macedonian nation, in 1934 The consolidation of an international Communist organization (the
Comintern) in the 1920s led to some failed attempts by the Communists to use the
Macedonian Question as a political weapon. In the 1920 Yugoslav parliamentary elections, 25% of the total Communist vote came from Macedonia, but participation was low (only 55%), mainly because the pro-Bulgarian IMRO organised a boycott against the elections. In the following years, the communists attempted to enlist the pro-IMRO sympathies of the population in their cause. In the context of this attempt, in 1924 the Comintern recognized a separate Macedonian nationality and organized the filed signing of the so-called
May Manifesto, in which independence of partitioned Macedonia was required. In 1925 with the help of the Comintern, the
Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (United) was created, composed of former left-wing
Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) members. This organization promoted for the first time in 1932 the existence of a separate ethnic Macedonian nation. In 1933 the
Communist Party of Greece, in a series of articles published in its official newspaper, the
Rizospastis, criticizing Greek minority policy towards Slavic-speakers in Greek Macedonia, recognized the Slavs of the entire region of Macedonia as forming a distinct Macedonian ethnicity and their language as Macedonian. The idea of a Macedonian nation was internationalized and backed by the Comintern which issued in 1934 a
resolution in which Macedonian national identity was recognized. This action was attacked by the IMRO, but was supported by the
Balkan communists. The Balkan communist parties supported the national consolidation of the ethnic Macedonian people and created Macedonian sections within the parties, headed by prominent IMRO (United) members.
World War II and Yugoslav nation-state building was the first president of the
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia after the
Second World War. The available data indicates that despite the policy of assimilation, pro-Bulgarian sentiments among the Macedonian Slavs in Yugoslavia were still sizable during the interwar period as a result of the repressive
Serbianisation policy. Soon after the
Bulgarian occupation, the authorities realized that only part of the Slavic Macedonians felt Bulgarian or was pro-Bulgarian. Because of that, the Bulgarian authorities initiated a program of intense
Bulgarisation. Although a Macedonian national consciousness was growing as well, The sense of belonging to a separate Macedonian nation gained credence during World War II when ethnic
Macedonian communist partisan movement was formed. The
Yugoslav communists recognized the existence of a Macedonian nationality during WWII to quiet fears of the Macedonian population that a
communist Yugoslavia would continue to implement the former policy of
Serbianization. Harsh treatment by occupying Bulgarian troops reduced the pro-Bulgarian orientation of the Macedonian Slavs even more, which made them embrace the emerging Macedonian identity. The wartime Bulgarisation policies, national chauvinism and suffering backlash, led even some anti-Yugoslav Macedonians that returned from exile to seek allies among the communists. In 1943 the
Communist Party of Macedonia was established and the
resistance movement grew up. After the World War II ethnic Macedonian institutions were created in the three parts of the region of Macedonia, then under communist control, including the establishment of the
People's Republic of Macedonia within the
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRJ). The codification of Macedonian language and the recognition of the Macedonian nation had as a main goal to finally subvert the
Bulgarian irredentism towards Yugoslav Macedonia, as well the claims that Macedonians are Bulgarians, the same applying to the Serbian claims that Macedonians were Serbs, and their
Greater Serbia idea. The overwhelming majority of the Slavic population in Macedonia accepted the emerging Macedonian national identity without a problem. As a result, Yugoslavia subdued the pro-Bulgarian feeling among parts of its population. Bulgarian sources claim around 100,000 pro-Bulgarian elements were imprisoned for violations of the special
Law for the Protection of Macedonian National Honour, and 1,260 were allegedly killed. However, these figures have been questioned by some Bulgarian researchers, also noting that the assertion that these individuals were persecuted and killed solely on account of their Bulgarian national consciousness is deceptive. that the creation of Macedonian identity is "no more or less artificial than any other identity", and that, contrary to the claims of Romantic nationalists, modern, territorially bound and mutually exclusive nation-states have little in common with their preceding large territorial or dynastic medieval empires, and any connection between them is tenuous at best. In any event, irrespective of shifting political affiliations, the Macedonian Slavs shared in the fortunes of the
Byzantine commonwealth and the
Rum millet and they can claim them as their heritage. Following the
Greek veto on the 21st NATO Summit in 2008, the then ruling party
VMRO-DPMNE pursued a policy called "
Antiquisation" by its critics. Proponents of this view see modern Macedonians as direct descendants of the ancient Macedonians. This view faces criticism by academics as it is not supported by archaeology or other historical disciplines and also could marginalize the Macedonian identity. Surveys on the effects of the controversial
nation-building project
Skopje 2014 and on the perceptions of the population of Skopje revealed a high degree of uncertainty regarding the latter's national identity. A supplementary national poll showed that there was a great discrepancy between the population's sentiment and the narrative the state sought to promote. Additionally, during the last two decades, tens of thousands of citizens of North Macedonia have applied for Bulgarian citizenship. In the period since 2000 more than 100,000 acquired it, while ca. 50,000 applied and are still waiting. Bulgaria has a special ethnic dual-citizenship regime which makes a constitutional distinction between
ethnic Bulgarians and
Bulgarian citizens. In the case of the Macedonians, merely declaring their national identity as Bulgarian is enough to gain a citizenship. By making the procedure simpler, Bulgaria stimulates more Macedonian citizens (of Slavic origin) to apply for a Bulgarian citizenship. However, many Macedonians who apply for Bulgarian citizenship as
Bulgarians by origin, have few ties with Bulgaria. In 2018, Bulgaria faced a scandal over the alleged sale of citizenship documents. Former Citizenship Council director Katya Mateva exposed a scheme in which the State Agency for Bulgarians Abroad issued thousands of falsified certificates of Bulgarian origin to Macedonians and Albanians in exchange for
bribes. Further, those applying for
Bulgarian citizenship usually say they do so to gain access to
member states of the European Union rather than to assert Bulgarian identity. This phenomenon is called
placebo identity. Some Macedonians view the Bulgarian policy as part of a strategy to destabilize the Macedonian national identity. Similarly, some researchers have described this policy as a form of
passportization, claiming that its purpose is the
Bulgarisation of Macedonians. Bulgaria insists its neighbor admit the common historical roots of their languages and nations, a view Skopje continues to reject. As a result, Bulgaria blocked the official start of EU accession talks with North Macedonia. Despite sizable number of Macedonians that have acquired Bulgarian citizenship since 2002 (ca. 10% of the Slavic population), only 3,504 citizens of North Macedonia declared themselves as ethnic Bulgarians in the
2021 census (roughly 0.31% from the Slavic population), which was observed and welcomed by the
European Commission. The Bulgarian side does not accept these results as completely objective, citing as an example the census has counted less than 20,000 people with Bulgarian citizenship in the country, while in fact they are over 100,000. ==Ethnonym==