Early history North Macedonia geographically roughly corresponds to the ancient
kingdom of Paeonia, which was located immediately north of the ancient
kingdom of Macedonia. In early times, the chief town and seat of the Paeonian kings was
Bylazora (in modern
Sveti Nikole municipality in North Macedonia) on the Vardar; later, the seat of the kings was moved to
Stobi (near modern
Gradsko). Paeonia was inhabited by the
Paeonians, whilst the northwest was inhabited by the Illyrian
Dardani and southwest by the
Enchelae (also an
Illyrian tribe), as well as
Pelagones and
Lyncestae of
Upper Macedonia (generally regarded as
Molossian tribes of the northwestern
Greek group). In the late 6th century BC, the
Achaemenid Persians under
Darius the Great conquered Paeonia, incorporating the area within their vast territories. Following their defeat in the
Second Persian invasion of Greece in 479 BC, the Persians eventually withdrew from their European territories. , a city founded by
Philip II of Macedon in the 4th century BC; ruins of the Byzantine "Small Basilica"
Philip II of Macedon absorbed the regions of Lynkestis, Pelagonia and the southern part of Paeonia (
Deuriopus) into the kingdom of Macedon in 356 BC. After the death of
Agis, the kingdom of Paeonia then led by
Lycceius, became vassal to Philip II in 356 BC. Philip's son
Alexander the Great conquered the remainder of the region and incorporated it in his empire, reaching as far north as
Scupi, but the city and the surrounding area remained part of
Dardania. After the death of Alexander,
Celtic armies began to bear down on the southern regions, threatening the kingdom of Macedon. In 310 BC, they attacked the area, but were defeated. The Romans established the
province of Macedonia in 146 BC. By the time of
Diocletian, the province had been subdivided between
Macedonia Prima ("first Macedonia") in the south, encompassing most of the kingdom of Macedon, and
Macedonia Salutaris (meaning "wholesome Macedonia", known also as
Macedonia Secunda, "second Macedonia") in the north, encompassing parts of Dardania and the whole of Paeonia, with the city of
Stobi as its capital. This comprised most of the territory of the modern country. Roman expansion brought the Scupi area under Roman rule in the time of
Domitian (81–96 AD), and it fell within the Province of
Moesia. Whilst Greek remained the dominant language in the eastern part of the Roman empire, especially south of the
Jireček Line, Latin spread to Macedonia to some extent.
Medieval period , depicting the defeat of
Samuil by
Basil II and the return of his blinded soldiers
Slavic tribes settled in the Balkan region including North Macedonia by the late 6th century AD. They were led by
Pannonian Avars. The Slavs settled on places of earlier settlements and probably merged later with the local populations to form mixed Byzantine-Slavic communities. Historical records document that in a
Bulgar ruler called
Kuber led a group of largely Christians called
Sermesianoi, who were his subjects, and they settled in the region of
Pelagonia. They may have consisted of Bulgars, Byzantines, Slavs and even Germanic tribes. There is no more information of Kuber's life.
Presian's reign apparently coincides with the extension of Bulgarian control over the Slavic tribes in and around Macedonia. The Slavic tribes that settled in the region of Macedonia converted to Christianity around the 9th century during the reign of Tsar
Boris I of Bulgaria. The
Ohrid Literary School became one of the two major cultural centres of the First Bulgarian Empire, along with the
Preslav Literary School. Established in Ohrid in 886 by Saint
Clement of Ohrid on the order of Boris I, the Ohrid Literary School was involved in the spreading of the
Cyrillic script. After
Sviatoslav's invasion of Bulgaria, the Byzantines took control of East Bulgaria.
Samuil was proclaimed
Tsar of Bulgaria. He moved the capital to Skopje and then to Ohrid, which had been the cultural and military centre of southwestern Bulgaria since Boris I's rule. Samuil re-established Bulgarian power, but after several decades of conflicts, in 1014, the Byzantine Emperor
Basil II defeated his armies, and within four years the Byzantines restored control over the Balkans (modern-day North Macedonia was included into a new province, called
Bulgaria). The rank of the autocephalous
Bulgarian Patriarchate was lowered due to its subjugation to
Constantinople and it was transformed into the
Archbishopric of Ohrid. By the late 12th century, Byzantine decline saw the region contested by various political entities, including a brief
Norman occupation in the 1080s. In the early 13th century, a revived
Bulgarian Empire gained control of the region. Plagued by political difficulties, the empire did not last, and the region came once again under Byzantine control in the early 14th century. In the 14th century, it became part of the
Serbian Empire. Skopje became the capital of Tsar
Stefan Dušan's empire. Following Dušan's death, a weak successor appeared, and power struggles between nobles divided the Balkans once again. These events coincided with the entry of the
Ottoman Turks into Europe.
Ottoman period The
Kingdom of Prilep was one of the short-lived states that emerged from the collapse of the Serbian Empire in the 14th century and was seized by the Ottomans at the end of the same century. Gradually, all of the central Balkans were conquered by the
Ottoman Empire and remained under its domination for five centuries as part of the province or
Eyalet of
Rumelia. The name
Rumelia (
Turkish:
Rumeli) means "Land of the Romans" in Turkish, referring to the lands conquered by the Ottoman Turks from the Byzantine Empire. Over the centuries, Rumelia Eyalet was reduced in size through administrative reforms, until by the 19th century it consisted of a region of central Albania and western North Macedonia with its capital at Manastir or present-day
Bitola. Rumelia Eyalet was abolished in 1867 and that territory of Macedonia subsequently became part of vilayets of
Manastir,
Kosova and
Selanik until the end of Ottoman rule in 1912. With the beginning of the
Bulgarian National Revival in the 19th century, many of the reformers were from this region, including the
Miladinov brothers,
Rajko Žinzifov,
Joakim Krčovski,
Kiril Pejčinoviḱ and others. The bishoprics of Skopje,
Debar,
Bitola,
Ohrid,
Veles, and
Strumica voted to join the
Bulgarian Exarchate after it was established in 1870.
Modern period Macedonian autonomism , head of the provisional government of the short-lived
Kruševo Republic during the
Ilinden uprising Several movements whose goals were the establishment of an autonomous Macedonia, which would encompass the entire region of Macedonia, began to arise in the late 19th century; the earliest of these was the
Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees, later becoming Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (SMARO). In 1905 it was renamed the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (IMARO), and after
World War I the organisation separated into the
Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) and the
Internal Thracian Revolutionary Organisation (ITRO). In the early years of the organisation, membership eligibility was exclusive to Bulgarians, but later it was extended to all inhabitants of European Turkey regardless of ethnicity or religion. The majority of its members were
Macedonian Bulgarians. In 1903, IMRO organised the
Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising against the
Ottomans, which after some initial successes, including the forming of the
Kruševo Republic, was crushed with much loss of life. The uprising and the forming of the Kruševo Republic are considered the cornerstone and precursors to the eventual establishment of the Macedonian state. The leaders of the Ilinden uprising are celebrated as national heroes in North Macedonia. The names of IMRO revolutionaries like
Gotse Delchev,
Pitu Guli,
Dame Gruev and
Yane Sandanski were included into the lyrics of the national anthem of the state of North Macedonia "
Denes nad Makedonija" ("Today over Macedonia"). The major national holiday of North Macedonia, the
Republic Day, is celebrated on 2 August, Ilinden (St. Elijah day), the day of the Ilinden uprising.
Kingdom of Serbia Following the two
Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 and the
dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, most of its European-held territories were divided between Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia. Most of the territory that was to become North Macedonia was annexed by Serbia conforming to the
treaty of peace concluded at Bucharest. However,
Strumica region was passed to Bulgaria. Following the partition, an anti-Bulgarian campaign was carried out in the areas under Serbian and Greek control. As many as 641 Bulgarian schools and 761 churches were closed by the Serbs, while Exarchist clergy and teachers were expelled. ) after the
Balkan Wars according to the
Treaty of Bucharest World War I During the
First World War, most of today's North Macedonia was part of the
Bulgarian occupied zone of Serbia after the country was
invaded by the
Central Powers in the fall of 1915. A policy of
Bulgarisation of the region and its population was immediately initiated, during the period the IMRO arose from a clandestine organisation to serve as gendarmerie, taking control of the whole police structure, enforcing the Bulgarisation of the region. school teachers were brought from Bulgaria while Serbian books were taken from schools and libraries and publicly destroyed. Adult males were sent to labour camps or forced to join the Bulgarian Army, representatives of the Serbian
intelligentsia were deported or executed.
Kingdom of Yugoslavia After the capitulation of Bulgaria and the end of the First World War, the area returned under Belgrade control as part of the newly formed
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and saw a reintroduction of anti-Bulgarian measures. Bulgarian teachers and clergy were expelled, Bulgarian language signs and books removed, and all Bulgarian organisations dissolved. which included systematic suppression of Bulgarian activists, altering family surnames, internal colonisation, exploiting workers, and intense propaganda. To aid the implementation of this policy, some 50,000 Serbian army and
gendarmerie were stationed in present-day North Macedonia. The
Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) promoted the concept of an
Independent Macedonia in the
interwar period. Its leaders—including
Todor Alexandrov,
Aleksandar Protogerov, and
Ivan Mihailov—promoted independence of the Macedonian territory split between Serbia and Greece for the whole population, regardless of religion and ethnicity. The Bulgarian government of
Alexander Malinov in 1918 offered to give
Pirin Macedonia for that purpose after
World War I, but the Great Powers did not adopt this idea because Serbia and Greece opposed it. In 1924, the
Communist International (Comintern) suggested that all Balkan communist parties adopt a platform of a "
United Macedonia" but the suggestion was rejected by the Bulgarian and Greek communists. IMRO followed by starting an insurgent war in Vardar Macedonia, together with
Macedonian Youth Secret Revolutionary Organization, which also conducted guerrilla attacks against the Serbian administrative and army officials there. In 1923 in Stip, a paramilitary organisation called
Association against Bulgarian Bandits was formed by Serbian
chetniks, IMRO renegades and
Macedonian Federative Organization (MFO) members to oppose IMRO and MMTRO. On 9 October 1934, IMRO member
Vlado Chernozemski assassinated
Alexander I of Yugoslavia. The
Macedonist ideas increased in Yugoslav Vardar Macedonia and among the left diaspora in Bulgaria during the interwar period. They were supported by the Comintern. In 1934, the Comintern issued a
special resolution in which for the first time directions were provided for recognising the existence of a separate Macedonian nation and Macedonian language.
World War II ,
Mihajlo Apostolski,
Metodija Andonov-Čento,
Lazar Koliševski and others, greeted in Skopje on 20 November 1944, a week after its liberation During World War II, Yugoslavia was occupied by the
Axis powers from 1941 to 1945. The Vardar Banovina was divided between Bulgaria and Italian-occupied Albania.
Bulgarian Action Committees were established to prepare the region for the new Bulgarian administration and army. The committees were mostly formed by former members of IMRO and Macedonian Youth Secret Revolutionary Organization (MYSRO, but some
IMRO (United) former members also participated. As leader of the Vardar Macedonian communists,
Metodi Shatorov ("Sharlo") switched from the
Yugoslav Communist Party to the
Bulgarian Communist Party and refused to start military action against the
Bulgarian Army. The Bulgarian authorities, under German pressure, were responsible for the round-up and deportation of over 7,000 Jews in Skopje and
Bitola. Harsh rule by the occupying forces encouraged many Vardar Macedonians to support the
Communist Partisan resistance movement of
Josip Broz Tito after 1943, and the
National Liberation War ensued. In Vardar Macedonia, after the
Bulgarian coup d'état of 1944, the Bulgarian troops, surrounded by German forces, fought their way back to the old borders of Bulgaria. Under the leadership of the new Bulgarian pro-Soviet government, four armies, 455,000 strong in total, were mobilised and reorganised. Most of them re-entered occupied Yugoslavia in early October 1944 and moved from
Sofia to
Niš, Skopje and
Pristina with the strategic task of blocking the German forces withdrawing from Greece. The Bulgarian army would
reach the Alps in Austria, participating in the expulsion of the Germans to the west, through Yugoslavia and Hungary. Compelled by the
Soviet Union with a view towards the creation of a large
South Slav Federation, in 1946 the new Communist government, led by
Georgi Dimitrov, agreed to give Bulgarian Macedonia to a
United Macedonia. With the
Bled agreement, in 1947 Bulgaria formally confirmed the envisioned unification of the Macedonian region, but postponed this act until after the formation of the future Federation. It was the first time it accepted the existence of a separate Macedonian ethnicity and language. After the
Tito–Stalin split the region of Pirin Macedonia remained part of Bulgaria and later the Bulgarian Communist Party revised its view of the existence of a separate Macedonian nation and language.
Socialist Yugoslavia was the political leader of SR Macedonia and briefly of SFR Yugoslavia. In December 1944, the
Anti-fascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM) proclaimed the People's Republic of Macedonia as part of the People's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. ASNOM remained an acting government until the end of the war. The Macedonian alphabet was codified by linguists of ASNOM, who based their alphabet on the phonetic alphabet of
Vuk Stefanović Karadžić and the principles of
Krste Petkov Misirkov. During the
civil war in Greece (1946–1949), Macedonian communist insurgents supported the Greek communists. Many refugees fled to the Socialist Republic of Macedonia from there. The state removed "Socialist" from its name in 1991 when it peacefully seceded from Yugoslavia. The new republic became one of the six republics of the Yugoslav federation. Following the federation's renaming as the
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1963, the People's Republic of Macedonia was likewise renamed the Socialist Republic of Macedonia.
Declaration of independence North Macedonia officially celebrates 8 September 1991 as
Independence day (,
Den na nezavisnosta), with regard to
the referendum endorsing independence from Yugoslavia. The anniversary of the start of the
Ilinden Uprising (
St. Elijah's Day) on 2 August is also widely celebrated on an official level as the
Day of the Republic.
Robert Badinter, as the head of the
Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on Yugoslavia, recommended EC recognition in January 1992. On 15 January 1992, Bulgaria was the first country to recognise the independence of the republic. Macedonia remained at peace through the
Yugoslav Wars of the early 1990s. A few very minor changes to its border with Yugoslavia were agreed upon to resolve problems with the demarcation line between the two countries. It was seriously destabilised by the
Kosovo War in 1999, when an estimated 360,000 ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo took refuge in the country. They departed shortly after the war, and
Albanian nationalists on both sides of the border took up arms soon after in pursuit of autonomy or independence for the Albanian-populated areas of Macedonia. The war ended with the intervention of a
NATO ceasefire monitoring force. Under the terms of the
Ohrid Agreement, the government agreed to devolve greater political power and cultural recognition to the Albanian minority. The Albanian side agreed to abandon separatist demands and to recognise all Macedonian institutions fully. In addition, according to this accord, the
NLA were to disarm and hand over their weapons to a NATO force. However the Macedonian security forces had two more armed confrontations with Albanian militant groups, in
2007 and
2015 respectively.
Inter-ethnic tensions flared in Macedonia in 2012, with incidents of violence between ethnic Albanians and Macedonians. In April 2017, about 200 protesters - reportedly mostly from the conservative VMRO-DPMNE party,
stormed the Macedonian Parliament in response to the election of Talat Xhaferi, an ethnic Albanian and former
National Liberation Army commander during the 2001 conflict, as the Speaker of the Assembly.
Antiquisation Upon its coming to power in 2006, but especially since the country's non-invitation to NATO in 2008, the VMRO-DPMNE government pursued a policy of "
Antiquisation" ("Antikvizatzija") as a way of putting pressure on Greece as well as for the purposes of domestic identity-building. Statues of
Alexander the Great and
Philip of Macedon have been erected in several cities across the country. Additionally, many pieces of public infrastructure, such as airports, highways, and stadiums were renamed after Alexander and Philip. These actions were seen as deliberate provocations in neighbouring Greece, exacerbating the dispute and further stalling the country's EU and NATO applications. The policy has also attracted criticism domestically, as well as from EU diplomats, Moreover, per Prespa agreement both countries have acknowledged that their respective understanding of the terms "Macedonia" and "Macedonian" refers to a different historical context and cultural heritage.
EU and NATO path In August 2017, what was then the Republic of Macedonia signed a
friendship agreement with Bulgaria, aiming to end the "anti-Bulgarian ideology" in the country and to solve the historical issues between the two. Under the
Prespa agreement, signed with Greece on 17 June 2018, the country agreed to change its name to the Republic of North Macedonia and stop public use of the
Vergina Sun. It retained the demonym "Macedonian", but clarified this as distinct from the Hellenistic Macedonian identity in northern Greece. The agreement included removal of irredentist material from textbooks and maps in both countries, and official UN recognition of the Slavic
Macedonian language. It replaced the bilateral Interim Accord of 1995. The withdrawal of the Greek veto, along with the signing the friendship agreement with Bulgaria, resulted in the European Union on 27 June approving the start of
accession talks, which were expected to take place in 2019, under the condition that the Prespa deal was implemented. On 5 July, the Prespa agreement was ratified by the Macedonian parliament with 69 MPs voting in favour of it. On 12 July,
NATO invited Macedonia to start accession talks in a bid to become the alliance's 30th member. On 30 July, the parliament of Macedonia approved plans to hold a non-binding
referendum on changing the country's name, which took place on 30 September. Ninety-one percent of voters voted in favour with a 37% turnout, but the referendum was not carried because of a constitutional requirement for a 50% turnout. On 6 February 2019, the permanent representatives of NATO member states and Macedonian Foreign Affairs Minister Nikola Dimitrov, signed in
Brussels the
accession protocol of North Macedonia into NATO. The protocol was then ratified on 8 February by the Greek parliament, thus completing all the preconditions for putting into force the Prespa agreement. Subsequently, on 12 February the Macedonian government announced the formal activation of the constitutional amendments which effectively renamed the country as North Macedonia and informed accordingly the United Nations and its member states. In March 2020, after the ratification process by all NATO members was completed, North Macedonia
acceded to NATO, becoming the 30th member state. The same month, the leaders of the
European Union formally gave approval to North Macedonia to begin talks to join the EU. On 17 November 2020, Bulgaria refused to approve the European Union's negotiation framework for North Macedonia, effectively blocking the official start of accession talks with this country. The explanation from the Bulgarian side was: no implementation of the friendship treaty from 2017, state-supported hate speech, minority claims, and an "ongoing nation-building process" based on historical negationism of the Bulgarian identity, culture and legacy in the broader
region of Macedonia. The veto received condemnation by intellectuals from both states and criticism from international observers. Protests broke out in
July 2022, organised by the opposition parties, over the French proposal for the
accession of North Macedonia to the EU. The accession talks for the accession of North Macedonia to the EU officially began in the same month, after the French proposal was passed by the Assembly of North Macedonia. The 2023 European Commission Progress Report has cited the unfulfilled constitutional changes, as the primary reasons for the blocking of the further country's accession path. The EU's intention regarding the country's accession seems unclear, excluding desire to maintain its geopolitical influence here, countering the Chinese and Russian impact in the Western Balkans. On 25 September 2024, the EU announced the separation of Albania from North Macedonia on the EU accession path, due to the disputes between North Macedonia and Bulgaria. Following the decision, the EU opened negotiations on the first chapters with Albania separately on October 15, 2024. == Geography ==