Origins The rocky promontory on which Skopje Fortress stands was the first site to be settled in Skopje. The earliest vestiges of human inhabitance found on this site date from the Chalcolithic (
4th millennium BC). Although the Chalcolithic settlement must have been of some significance, it declined during the
Bronze Age. Archaeological research suggests that the settlement always belonged to the same culture, which progressively evolved due to contacts with
Balkan and
Danube cultures, and later with the
Aegean. The locality eventually disappeared during the
Iron Age when Scupi emerged on Zajčev Rid hill, some west of the fortress promontory. At the centre of the Balkan peninsula and on the road between the Danube and Aegean Sea, it was a prosperous locality, although its history is not well known.
Roman Scupi Roman expansion east brought Scupi under Roman rule as a colony of
legionaries, mainly veterans of the
Legio VII Claudia during the reign of Emperor Domitian (AD 81–96). However, several legions from the
Roman province of Macedonia of
Crassus' army may already have been stationed there around 29–28 BC before the official imperial command was instituted. The first mention of the city was made at that period by
Livy, who died in AD 17. Shortly afterwards it became part of the province of
Moesia during
Augustus's rule. After the division of the province by Domitian in AD 86, Scupi was elevated to colonial status and became a seat of government within the new province of
Moesia Superior. The district called
Dardania (within Moesia Superior) was formed into a special province by Emperor
Diocletian, with the capital at
Naissus. The city's population was very diverse. Engravings on tombstones suggest that only a minority of the population came from
Italia, whilst many veterans were from
Dalmatia, southern
Gaul and
Syria. Because of the ethnic diversity of the population,
Latin maintained itself as the main language in the city at the expense of
Greek, which was spoken in most of the Moesian and Macedonian cities. During the following centuries, Scupi experienced prosperity. The period from the end of the 3rd century to the end of the 4th century was particularly flourishing. And another inscription was found that reads
Dardanus. In its zenith, Scupi covered 40 hectares and was closed by a wide wall. It had many monuments, including four
necropoles, a theatre,
thermae,
Middle Ages In 518, Scupi was destroyed by a violent earthquake, At that time, the region was threatened by
Barbarian invasions, and the city inhabitants had already fled to the forests and mountains before the disaster occurred. The city was eventually rebuilt by Justinian I. During his reign, many Byzantine towns were relocated on hills and other easily defendable places to face invasions. It was thus transferred to another site: the promontory on which Skopje Fortress stands. Despite this, Scupi was sacked by
Slavs at the end of the 6th century and the city seems to have fallen under Slavic rule in 595. After the Slavic invasion it was deserted for some time and is not mentioned during the following centuries. of Emperor
Stefan Dušan in Skopje Starting from the end of the 10th century Skopje experienced a period of wars and political troubles. It served as the Bulgarian capital from 972 to 992, and
Tsar Samuel ruled it from 976 until 1004, when its governor surrendered it to Byzantine Emperor
Basil the Bulgar Slayer in 1004 in exchange for the titles of
patrikios and
strategos. It became a centre of a new Byzantine
province called
Bulgaria. Later Skopje was briefly seized twice by Slavic insurgents who wanted to restore the Bulgarian state, at first in 1040 under
Peter Delyan's command, and in 1072 under the orders of
Georgi Voyteh. In 1081, Skopje was captured by
Norman troops led by
Robert Guiscard and the city remained in their hands until 1088. Skopje was subsequently conquered by the Serbian Grand Prince
Vukan in 1093, and again by the Normans four years later. However, because of epidemics and food shortage, Normans quickly surrendered to the Byzantines. During the 12th and 13th centuries, Bulgarians and Serbs took advantage of Byzantine decline to create large kingdoms stretching from the
Danube to the Aegean Sea.
Kaloyan brought Skopje back into the re-established
Second Bulgarian Empire in 1203 until his nephew
Strez declared autonomy along the Upper Vardar with Serbian aid only five years later. In 1209, Strez switched allegiances and recognised
Boril of Bulgaria with whom he led a successful joint campaign against Serbia's first internationally recognised King
Stefan Nemanjić. From 1214 to 1230, Skopje was a part of the Byzantine successor state of
Epirus before being recaptured by
Ivan Asen II and held by Bulgaria until 1246 when the Upper Vardar valley was incorporated once more into another Byzantine
rump state – the
Empire of Nicaea. Byzantine conquest was briefly reversed in 1255 by the
regents of the young
Michael Asen I of Bulgaria. Meanwhile, in the parallel civil war for the Crown in
Tarnovo, the Skopje
boyar and grandson of
Stefan Nemanja Constantine Tikh gained the upper hand and ruled until the
Uprising of Ivaylo, Europe's only successful peasant revolt, led to his deposition from power. In 1282, Skopje was captured by Serbian King
Stefan Milutin. Under the political stability of the
Nemanjić rule, the settlement spread outside the walls of the fortress, towards Gazi Baba hill. before becoming part of the
Ottoman Empire in 1392. The Ottomans drastically changed the appearance of the city. They organised the Old Bazaar, with its
caravanserais, mosques and
baths. In the
cadastral register of 1451–52, the Skopje neighbourhood '
(), is mentioned, being named after the medieval Albanian Gjini family. The neighbourhood displayed mixed Christian Albanian anthroponymy with cases of Slavicisation present (e.g. ; ' + Slavic suffix
ić). During this time period, a number of
timariots of the city are recorded as bearing the name (meaning
Albanian) alongside a Muslim name, i.e.
, , . Another group bore Slavic Christian names, whilst also bearing the surname /'
, i.e. ', '
, ', '
, etc. These individuals are noted as not having the Slavic appellatives ', '
or ', which were given by Ottoman authorities to new settlers of a given region, likely indicating they were locals. In the year 1451 or 1453 a neighbourhood was registered bearing an
Aromanian name, . Amongst the 45 family heads of this neighbourhood, Christian Slavic and Albanian anthroponyms were recorded (, son of ,
Koljko Bibani, '
, son of ', etc.), whilst a sizeable number of individuals bearing mixed Slavic-
Vlach anthroponyms are also registered, such as: ''
, son of Vllah (Iflak''), '
, son of ', '''', , , etc. In the
mahallah in the year 1451 or 1453, a head of the family from the noble Albanian
Muzaka family, who had converted to Islam, was re-registered amongst the Muslim heads of the family. In the other register of 1467/68, now in the Christian mahallah named , amongst the 29 heads of families with Slavic Christian anthroponyms, a number also carried Albanian anthroponyms. In the neighbourhood of , amongst the residents with Muslim names, the head of the family was registered only with the surname
Zenebishi, without mentioning his social position or his profession, indicating a higher social status. This may suggest a relation to Hasan Bey Zenebishi, a descendant of the
Zenebishi family and the
Soubashi of the
Nahiyah of
Kalkandelen. Individuals bearing Albanian anthroponyms, be they in conjunction with Islamic, Slavic or Christian ones, also appear in the neighbourhoods of
Kasim Fakih,
Dursun Saraç,
Kujumxhi Mentesheli,
Çerep, Jandro, Stanimir, Vllah Dançu and
Rela. In the 1467/68 and 1568/69 defter, Skopje had a majority Muslim population. The 1467/68 defter recorded 33 Muslim town quarters with 637 houses whereas the Christians had 11 quarters with 277 houses. In 1568/69 there were 57 Muslim quarters and only 9 Christian. Around 1529, the Christians of Skopje were mostly non-converted
Slavs and
Albanians, but also
Ragusan and
Armenian tradesmen.
Mustafa Pasha Mosque, built in 1492, is reputed to be "one of the most resplendent sacral Islamic buildings in the Balkans." In 1535 all churches were demolished by decree of the Ottoman governor. In 1555, the city was hit by another severe earthquake, collapsing much of the city. The
Old Bazaar of Skopje, the columns of the Stone Bridge, and the
murals in the upper parts of the
Church of Saint Panteleimon, Gorno Nerezi were all severely damaged. Some modern sources estimate this earthquake to have been a Category XII (Extreme) on the
Modified Mercalli intensity scale, although others believe this is an overestimate. In the Ottoman period,
Turk was used within Christian writings as a name for a Muslim or for Islamised Albanians. Sources from the years of 1689–1690 considered the town of Shkupi (Skopje) during those periods as part of
Albania. Until the 17th century, Skopje experienced a long golden age. Around 1650, the number of inhabitants in Skopje was between 30,000 and 60,000, and the city contained more than 10,000 houses. It was then one of the only big cities on the territory of future Yugoslavia, together with Belgrade and
Sarajevo. At that time,
Dubrovnik, which was a busy harbour, did not even have 7,000 inhabitants. The city severely suffered from the
Great Turkish War at the end of the 17th century and consequently experienced recession until the 19th century. In 1689, the
Habsburgs seized Skopje which was already weakened by a
cholera epidemic. The same day, general
Silvio Piccolomini began the
Skopje fire of 1689, attempting to end the epidemic. Skopje burned for two days but the general himself perished of the plague and his leaderless army was routed. The Austrian presence in Macedonia motivated Slav uprisings. Nevertheless, the Austrians left the country within the year and the
Hajduks, the leaders of the uprisings, had to follow them in their retreat north of the Balkans. The Slavic population of the bishopric of Skopje voted in 1874 overwhelmingly, by 91% in favour of joining the Exarchate and became part of the
Bulgarian Millet. Economic growth was permitted by the construction of the Skopje-
Salonica railway in 1873. Kanchov wrote in the same year that many Albanians declared themselves as Turks. In Skopje, the population that declared itself Turkish "was of Albanian blood", but it "had been
Turkified after the Ottoman invasion, including
Skanderbeg", referring to Islamisation. Bulgarian literary historian
Yordan Ivanov wrote in 1915 that Albanians, since they did not have their own alphabet, due to a lack of consolidated national consciousness and influenced by foreign propaganda, declared themselves as Turks, Greeks and Bulgarians, depending on which religion they belonged to. Albanians were losing their mother tongue in Skopje. German linguist
Gustav Weigand described that Skopje's Muslim population of "Turks" or "Ottomans" during the late Ottoman period were mainly Albanians who spoke Turkish in public and Albanian at home. In 1905, the city had 32,000 inhabitants, making it the largest of the vilayet, although closely followed by
Prizren with its 30,000 inhabitants. On 3 and 5 August respectively, they attacked an Ottoman unit guarding the bridge on the Vardar River and fought a battle in the St. Jovan monastery. In the next few days, the band was pursued by numerous
Bashibozuks and moved to Bulgaria. Following the
Young Turk Revolution in 1908, the Ottoman Empire experienced democracy and several political parties were created. File:Ottoman Postcard of Huriet in Skopie2.jpg|
Bulgarian manifestation in support of the
Young Turk Revolution File:Sv. Bogorodica Skopje 01.jpg|The
Church of the Nativity of the Theotokos, seat of the Bulgarian Orthodox Diocese of Skopje, built in the 19th century File:Skopje-couteliers 1919.jpg|Cutlers in the
Old Bazaar around 1900
Balkan Wars to present day in August 1912 after defeating the Ottoman forces holding the city, later the Ottomans restored power over the city visiting Skopje in 1914 Following an alliance contracted in 1912,
Bulgaria,
Greece and Serbia declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Their goal was to definitively expel the Ottomans from Europe. The
First Balkan War started on 8 October 1912 and lasted six weeks. Serbians reached Skopje on 26 October. Ottoman forces had left the city the day before. The Serbian annexation led to the exodus of 725 Muslim families which left the city on 27 January 1913. The same year, the city population was evaluated at 37,000 by the Serbian authorities. After the end of the World War, Vardar Macedonia became part of the new
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, which became "Kingdom of Yugoslavia" in 1929. At that time part of the young locals, repressed by the Serbs, tried to find a separate way of ethnic Macedonian development. In 1931, in a move to formally decentralise the country, Skopje was named the capital of the
Vardar Banovina of the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Until the Second World War, Skopje experienced strong economic growth, and its population increased. The city had 41,066 inhabitants in 1921, 64,807 in 1931, and 80,000 in 1941. In 1941, Skopje had 45 factories. In 1941, during the Second World War, Yugoslavia was invaded by
Nazi Germany. Germans seized Skopje on 8 April The 4,000 Jews of Skopje were all deported in 1943 to the
Treblinka extermination camp where almost all of them were killed. ,
Dimitar Vlahov and
Mihajlo Apostolski parading in liberated Skopje, November 1944
Skopje was captured on 13 November 1944 by units of the
Bulgarian People's Army (Bulgaria having switched sides in the war
in September) aided by
Yugoslav Partisans of the
Macedonian National Liberation Army. Skopje became the capital city of the newly proclaimed
Democratic Federal Macedonia as set up by the
ASNOM on 2 August 1944 in the
Bulgarian occupation zone in Yugoslavia. After World War II, Skopje greatly benefited from
Socialist Yugoslav policies which encouraged industry and the development of Macedonian cultural institutions. Consequently, Skopje became home to a national library, a philharmonic orchestra, a university, and the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts. However, its post-war development was altered by the
1963 earthquake which occurred on 26 July. Although relatively weak in magnitude, it caused enormous damage in the city and can be compared to the
1960 Agadir earthquake. The disaster killed 1,070 people, injuring 3,300 others. 16,000 people were buried alive in ruins and 70% of the population lost their home. Many educational facilities, factories and historical buildings were destroyed. After 1963, rural youth migrated to Skopje and were involved in the reconstruction process resulting in a large growth of the urban Macedonian population. The Albanian population of Skopje also increased as people from the northern villages migrated to the city and others came from Kosovo either to provide manpower for reconstruction or fled the deteriorating political situation, especially during the 1990s. However, during the 1980s and the 1990s, the country experienced inflation and recession, and the local economy heavily suffered. The situation improved during the 2000s thanks to new investments. Many landmarks were restored and the "Skopje 2014" project renewed the appearance of the city centre. ==Emblems==