North Macedonia
North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Key economic partners are Germany, Greece, Italy, the United States, Slovenia, Austria and Turkey.
History
North Macedonia is a landlocked country in Southeastern Europe of Slavic people closely related to Bulgarians. Its capital is Skopje with 500,000 inhabitants, and there are a number of smaller cities, notably Bitola, Kumanovo, Prilep, Tetovo, Ohrid, Veles, Shtip, Kochani, Gostivar and Strumica. It has more than 50 natural and artificial lakes and sixteen mountains higher than 2,000 meters (6,550 ft) above sea level. It is bordered by Serbia to the north, Albania to the west, Greece to the south, and Bulgaria to the east. The country is a member of the United Nations and the Council of Europe and a member of La Francophonie, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Since December 2005, it is also a candidate for joining the European Union and had applied for NATO membership. On 27 March 2020, North Macedonia became the 30th NATO member.
Over the centuries the territory which today forms the FYROM was ruled by a number of different states and former empires. Macedonia is a Hellenic historical national identity and the culture of Macedonia is Hellenic. Although FYROM who claims the name of Macedonia is a young state, since it became independent in 1991, its roots run into the history of last decades. The name "Macedonia" is in fact a Greek word. All the archaeological evidence shows that the Macedonian civilization was a Greek tribe, which has nothing to do with modern Slavic inhabitants. The region Macedonia is located in the heart of the Balkans, north of southern Greece, east of Illyria, and west of Thrace. The state of FYROM today occupies a northern region of Macedonian land.
At the start of the 21st century, the Slavs of FYROM fought an insurgency by irredentist Albanians. They fought them with help from NATO, who only the previous year had used enriched uranium to attack Serbia who were fighting an Albanian insurgency in Kosovo.
Further history
- 146 BC: The Romans established the province of Macedonia.
- 967/968–971: 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.
- 1014: The Byzantine Emperor Basil II defeated Sviatoslav's armies, and within four years the Byzantines restored control over the Balkans (modern-day North Macedonia was included into a new province, called Bulgaria).
- 1246: Ser was one a large city, but the Bulgarian Ivan had demolished when besieging it and other Macedonian cities.[1]
- 1371–1395: 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.
- 1704: The French traveler and writer Paul Luca on Macedonia ...and hour after midnight for Kavalla, which is six miles away and once was a large Macedonian city by the sea coast. We should note that almost all the villages in Macedonia are full of Christians and there are few Turks.[2]
- 7 June 1913: To the Governments and the Public of the Allied Balkans States The Macedonians have continually, over the centuries, risen up and fought for independence and freedom, and by their persistent struggle aided the liberation of Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria....More then on hundred thousand Macedonian fighters have fought shoulder to shoulder with the allied armies... Macedonia should be an independent state within its ethnographic, geographical, cultural and historical boundaries, with a government accountable to a national assembly... A national representative body should be established... In the city of Salonika, elected by general vote. Brother allies and liberators! We hope that our words will reach your hearts and minds...[3]
- 8 September 1991: An independence referendum was held in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, which afterwards proclaimed independence from Yugoslavia. It was approved by 96% of voters, with a turnout of 76%.
- 17 June 2018: Under the Prespa agreement, signed with Greece, 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.[4]
External links
Encyclopedias
References
- ↑ Georgii Acropolitae Opera, Recensuit A. Haisenberg vol. I, Lipsiae 1903, pp. 74–75, 77
- ↑ A. Matkovski and P. Angelakova, Patuvanjata na francuskiot petepisec Pol Luka niz Makedonija od 1704 do 1714-Istorija v/2 (1969). p. 101
- ↑ St. Petersburg Signed by the authorized representatives Makedonskii Golos, St. Petersburg, pp. 52–55
- ↑ Final Agreement for the Settlement of Differences as Described in the United Nations Security Council Resolutions 817 (1993) and 845 (1993), the Termination of the Interim Accord of 1995, and the Establishment of a Strategic Partnership Between the Parties.
