Macedonia (
i/ˌmæsɨˈdoʊniə/ mas-i-doh-nee-ə;
Macedonian: Македонија,
tr. Makedonija [makɛˈdɔnija]), officially the
Republic of Macedonia(Macedonian:
Република Македонија (
help·
info), tr.
Republika Makedonija), is a country located in the central
Balkan peninsula in
Southeast Europe. It is one of the
successor states of the former
Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991. It became a member of the
United Nations in 1993.
Slavic peoples settled in the Balkan region including Macedonia by the late 6th century. During the 580s,
Byzantineliterature attests to the
Slavs raiding Byzantine territories in the region of Macedonia, later aided by
Bulgars. Historical records document that in c. 680 a group of Bulgars, Slavs and Byzantines led by a Bulgar called
Kuber settled in the region of Keramisian plain, centred on the city of
Bitola.
[34] Presian's reign apparently coincides with the extension of Bulgarian control over the Slavic tribes in and around Macedonia. The Slavic peoples that settled in the region of Macedonia accepted Christianity as their own religion around the 9th century, during the reign of Tsar
Boris I of Bulgaria.
In 1014, the Byzantine Emperor Basil II defeated the armies of Tsar Samuil of Bulgaria, and within four years the Byzantines restored control over the Balkans (including Macedonia) for the first time since the 7th century. However, by the late 12th century, Byzantine decline saw the region contested by various political entities, including a brief Normanoccupation 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, who saw themselves as liberators of their Slavic kin from Byzantine despotism.Skopje became the capital of Tsar Stefan Dusan's empire.
Following Dusan'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. The Kingdom of Prilep was one of the short-lived states that emerged from the collapse of the Serbian Empire in the 14th century.[35] Gradually, all the central Balkans were conquered by the Ottoman Empire and remained under its domination for five centuries.During World War II, Yugoslavia was occupied by the Axis Powers from 1941 to 1945. The Vardar Banovinawas divided between Bulgaria andItalian-occupied Albania. Bulgarian Action Committees were established to prepare the region for the new Bulgarian administration and army.[46]The Committees were mostly formed by former members of IMRO, but some communists such as Panko Brashnarov, Strahil Gigov and Metodi Shatorov also participated.
As leader of the Vardar Macedonia communists, Shatorov switched from theYugoslav Communist Party to the Bulgarian Communist Party[47][48] and refused to start military action against the Bulgarian army.[49] The Bulgarian authorities, under German pressure,[50] were responsible for the round-up and deportation of over 7,000 Jews in Skopje and Bitola.[51] Harsh rule by the occupying forces encouraged many Macedonians to support the CommunistPartisan resistance movement of Josip Broz Tito after 1943,[52] and theNational Liberation War ensued, with German forces being driven out of Macedonia by the end of 1944.
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.[53] Compelled by the Soviet Union with a view towards the creation of a large South Slav Federation, the Bulgarian government once again offered to give Pirin Macedonia to such a United Macedonia in 1945.Macedonia has a rich cultural heritage in art, architecture, poetry, and music. It has many ancient, protected religious sites. Poetry, cinema, and music festivals are held annually. Macedonian music styles developed under the strong influence of Byzantine church music. Macedonia has a significant number of preserved Byzantine fresco paintings, mainly from the period between the 11th and 16th centuries. There are several thousands square metres of fresco painting preserved, the major part of which is in very good condition and represent masterworks of the Macedonian School of ecclesiastical painting.
The most important cultural events in the country are the Ohrid Summer festival of classical music and drama, the Struga Poetry Evenings which gather poets from more than 50 countries in the world, International Camera Festival in Bitola, Open Youth Theatre and Skopje Jazz Festival in Skopje etc. The Macedonian Opera opened in 1947 with a performance ofCavalleria rusticana under the direction of Branko Pomorisac. Every year, the May Opera Evenings are held in Skopje for around 20 nights. The first May Opera performance was that of Kiril Makedonski's Tsar Samuil in May 1972 Often referred to as "the Jerusalem of the Balkans," the Macedonian city of Ohrid is one of just 28 locations worldwide to have been listed by the UN Education, Science, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in both its culture and nature categories. According to the UNESCO website, the "city and its historic-cultural region are located in a natural setting of exceptional beauty, while its architecture represents the best preserved and most complete ensemble of ancient urban architecture of the Slavic lands.
