When did the Macedonians become Slavs?

Question

Today I see there is a state called FYROM. People there describe themselves as Macedonian. However they are and also claim to be of Slav origin.

We know that ancient Macedonians have never been Slavs. Actually we have never heard of a Slav Macedonian ethnicity before 20th century.

The scholars worldwide believe that the real descendants of the ancient Macedonians are the Greeks. Still, this doesn't answer my question - when did the so called Macedonians in FYROM become Slavs?

I have checked some data and they claim that Slavs came on the Balkans in 6-7 century but for example the Macedonian dynasty that ruled Byzantium between 867-1045 were non-Slavic emperors. So it is evident that this suspicious transformation happened later if at all.

Do you have the answer when and how it took place?

Answer 1

MACEDONIANS Are MACEDONIANS!!! Not GREEK,BULGARIA,SERBIAN!! MACEDONIA is back to its own country today but not reunioned with the other parts that were divided after the Balkan Wars in 1912-1913!!! People get real confused about the MACEDONIAN Nation because it was divided and other nations like Greece claim that it was never divided and MACEDONIA was only in Greece!! MACEDONIANS in this part after it was given to the Greeks were stripped of their Human Rights!! The Government made strict rules against the MACEDONIAN Nation in this part to aliminate anything to do with the MACEDONIANS! Cities, Villages,Lakes and rivers were renamed to Greek! People had to change their last names to Greek whoever spoke the MACEDONIAN language were beaten!! Whoever did not follow these orders they had to leave this area!! Leaving families and their homes to strangers!!! Churches were White washed and destoryed from any MACEDONIA writing!!! The MACEDONIANS in this area got it hard!! And still to this day Greece denies that it was MACEDONIA and that there are MACEDONIANS still living in Greece!! http://florina.org Their is a book written by a Greek and in Greek!! I strongly recommend Greek people to buy this book and read it http://florina.org/html/books/mixed_people/mixed_nation.html
This book explains what happen in todays Northern Greece after the Balkan Wars! Bulgaria and Albania also have parts of MACEDONIA when it was divided but they do not deny that there aren't any MACEDONIANS there!!! Greek stole the MACEDONIANS history after the Balkan Wars!! Pre-1988 when you would ask someone that was Greek Where is MACEDONIA? They would say that there is no such a thing as MACEDONA and MACEDONIANS!! But in 1988 they named Northern Greece MACEDONIA But then started saying Oh yes there is a MACEDONIA but it is in Greece! It is sad to city people still believing this!! MACEDONIA IS ONLY FOR THE MACEDONIANS!!!!

Answer 2

army_rain is absolutely correct. There was a 19th century German historian, whose name I forget, who argued that there were so many invading people washing over Greece, Macedonia und so weiter for so many centuries, that the people today must be slavic or whatever, and the original people somehow washed away.

This gets back to the time of the Roman Empire. In the age of Caesar Augustus, people estimate that the population of Rome was 500,000. Then they conquered the rest of Italy, Gaul, Spain, Greece, Egypt, the Middle East, Britain. How many Romans could they spare per province? In the age of Caesar Augustus, there were a few ruling Romans among a large indigenous population of Celts.

Then the barbarian invasions. We read of 60,000 Visigoths. 60,000! Wow! Even if you add tens of thousands of Ostrogoths, Vandals, Burgundians, Franks, sheesh! The population of France, Spain, Italy, Austria, the Southern Netherlands, Romania, must be today very much as it was before Julius Caesar, Alaric, Theodoric, or Clovis. There is a minute admixture of Germanic and Italic people. But there was never anywhere a complete Italic submersion, Germanic submersion, Slavic submersion.

Answer 3

Personally I would go to www.history.com and look up the Macedonian Empire and see when they migrated to the Slavic territory. Or if when the Ottomans with Russia were there did they mate and have children of the mix of Slav and Macedonian. Greeks were an empire at one time but had no connection to being a slav, in my memory. But then today maybe? Russia got around during WWII by infiltrating Greece and Cyprus to build their communist armies of rebellion but were driven out into Turkey (Ottoman/Russian) Maybe after WWII when everything was all mixed up. Slavs are Slavs and Greeks are Macedonians just like in America if we mate with other people from other countries we have the luxury of still being just an American and then we dont get confused on the race issue? But there I guess it matters because they have extreme prejudice, I guess it comes from being so ancient and not wanting to let go of old traditional beliefs.

Answer 4

There is no connection between the ancient Macedonians and those that live in FYROM today. It is true that Greeks are the descendants of the ancient Macedonians and all serious academic publications come to the same conclusion. Not to mention that it is obvious after taking a mere educated look at all documents having to do with the matter.

All documents in which Macedonians have been mentioned before the 20th century either refer to the history (ancient Macedonians), or to the geographical region of Macedonia. In both cases these do not bear any connection to Slavic language or ethnicity and are always in relation to Greek culture, language and identity.

On the other hand all documents referring to people inhabiting the territory of today's FYROM come as a proof of their Bulgarian origin.

If you want to understand this "transformation" you have to know the historical circumstances. Macedonia gained its independence in 1912 after the Balkan wars. Soon after that it got occupied by the Serbs and people with Bulgarian consciousness there were tortured and expelled. Still, those that remained could not be convinced that they were Serbs and thus were given the name Macedonians. They would have been satisfied with any status different from Ottoman Empire's slaves and getting their independence was considered a positive attribute.

It was Bulgaria that gave the most victims (and actually all the weight of the war against the Ottomans) but Greece and Serbia had a plan to divide the territory after the First Balkan War and this lead to the Second Balkan War which the Bulgarians, being attacked by all of their neighbors, lost.

Even at this point one cannot speak of Macedonians as all efforts for autonomous Macedonia before the Wars were undertaken by IMRO which was Bulgarian in its essence and was comprised of Bulgarians.

With the communism the notion of Macedonians was forced on the population by the Stalin and Tito communists.

Today, almost nobody recognizes the so-called Macedonians as Macedonians and the name FYROM is used (instead of the constitutional name Republic of Macedonia) in all international organizations.

The language used until 1945 was the official Bulgarian language which was designed with some language reforms (by the communists in 1945) into Macedonian language. In all cases these people are Slavs and have no connection with the ancient Macedonians even though they have been used to declare themselves with the same name.

In short, to answer your question, the Macedonians never became Slavs. It was the Slavs there that became Macedonians. And it happened artificially and for political reasons in the 20th century. All of this can be additionally verified by a simple online research.

The number of links online is infinite. However the best one would be this archive based on original documents and you can inform yourself as all of those are translated into English:

http://www.kroraina.com/bugarash/BAN/

Answer 5

When did Scots and Welsh become Brits?

When did Catalonians and Basques become Spaniards?

When did Apaches, Lakota and Iroquois become Americans?

There are Slavic Masedonians, Greeks Macedonians, Bulgarian Macedonians (Pirin Macedonia) and Albanian Macedonians. It is an ethnic and a linguistic group that is spread out over 4 modern countries.

Macedonians who say they are Slavic, still think under the country of Yugoslavia. Just as many older people in parts of NW Poland still say they are Prussian (German) from before WW2.

Answer 6

There has never been a transformation of Macedonians to Slavs.The Slavs came into the Balkans and in the Macedonia region in the 7th century after Christ. They have nothing to do with the ancient Macedonians who were of Greek origin.They never even used themselves the term Macedonian (only Slav or Bulgarian) before Tito started his propaganda which still goes on today by those who never even read proper history in their lives. By starting to call themselves Macedonians they put claim over the whole Macedonia history with which they have absolutely nothing in common.

Answer to Solun

The asker made a simple question stating the worldwide known fact
that the inhabitants of F.Y.R.O.M. are Slavs and speak a form of Bulgarian . In all your propagandistic post you never answer the question. Is it so hard to accept that these people are Slavs who came to Macedonia in the 6th and 7th century?

Answer 7

That is a very good question!
Macedonians are Greeks only!

Answer 8

You are correct that ancient Macedonians were Greeks. Today the descendants of ancient Macedonians are part of the Greek nation. The authentic Macedonia of Greece has a population of about 2and half million people.
There are also Slav and Albanian Macedonians but they have no relation with the ancient Macedonians. They use the term only geographically since the Greek term Macedonia is used as a broader geographical term in the Balkans.
In history we have 2 separated events that made some Slavs to use the name Macedonian. (Of course the Macedonians never became Slavs. It is a wrong hypothesis)
a)The first incident, after the end of the Greek-Roman world and during the supremacy of the Greek dominated empire of the middle ages (the famous Byzantine Empire), is a great number of population movements that occurred.
The most important movement that affects the Greek/Roman Balkans was the appearance of the Slavic tribes. They first arrived in the late 6th and early 7th centuries AD when Slavic-speaking populations overturned Macedonia's Greek ethnic composition. From that time although the majority of the population remained Greek, the northern parts were populated by a majority of Slavs (mainly of Bulgarian origin).
(A branch of the Bulgarians led by khan Kuber, however, settled western Macedonia and eastern Albania around 680 AD and also engaged in attacks on Byzantium together with the Slavs.)
The Slavs in Macedonia continued to call themselves Bulgarians during the first four centuries of Ottoman rule and were described as such by Ottoman historians like Evliya Celebi and Sa'aedin.
From the 17th century, authors who declared themselves 'Macedonian' did so in the context of publishing Greek books and belonging to the Greek nation. 19th century ethnographers and travelers were generally united in identifying the Slavic speakers as Bulgarians, at least!
b)The second incident is the creation of the Socialist republic of (Slavic)Macedonia inside the communist Yugoslavia in 1946.
Following the war, Tito separated Yugoslav Macedonia from Serbia, making it a republic of the new federal Yugoslavia (as the Socialist Republic of Macedonia) in 1946. He also promoted the concept of a separate “Macedonian nation”, as a means of severing the ties of the Slav population of Yugoslav Macedonia with Bulgaria, although the modern (Slav)Macedonian language is close to and largely mutually intelligible with Bulgarian, and to a lesser extent Serbian. The differences were emphasized and the region's historical figures were promoted as being uniquely “Macedonian” (almost every Bulgarian hero was described as “Macedonian”). A separate Macedonian Orthodox Church was established, splitting off from the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1967 (only partly successfully, because the church has not been recognized by any other Orthodox Church). The ideologists of a separate and independent Macedonian country, same as the pro-Bulgarian sentiment, were forcibly suppressed.
Tito had a number of reasons for doing this. First, he wanted to reduce Serbia's dominance in Yugoslavia; establishing a territory formerly considered Serbian as an equal to Serbia within Yugoslavia achieved this effect. Secondly, he wanted to sever the ties of the Macedonian population with Bulgaria as recognition of that population as Bulgarian could have undermined the unity of the Yugoslav federation. Thirdly, Tito sought to justify future Yugoslav claims towards the rest of geographical Macedonia; in August 1944, he claimed that his goal was to reunify "all parts of Macedonia, divided in 1915 and 1918 by Balkan imperialists." To this end, he opened negotiations with Bulgaria for a new federal state, which would also probably have included Albania, and supported the Greek Communists in the Greek Civil War. The idea of reunification of all of Macedonia under Communist rule was abandoned in 1948 when the Greek Communists lost and Tito fell out with the Soviet Union and pro-Soviet Bulgaria.
Tito's actions had a number of important consequences for the Macedonians. The most important was, obviously, the promotion of a distinctive Macedonian identity as a part of the multiethnic society of Yugoslavia. The process of ethnogenesis gained momentum, and a distinct national Macedonian identity was formed. There have been numerous accounts from northern Macedonia from the late 1940s that the policy of Bulgarisation during the Bulgarian occupation (1941 - 1944) was as abhorrent for the ordinary Macedonian as the policy of Serbisation until then. IMRO's leader in exile, Ivan Mihailov, and the renewed Bulgarian IMRO after 1990 have, on the other hand, repeatedly argued that between 120,000 and 130,000 people went through the concentration camps of Idrizovo and Goli Otok for pro-Bulgarian sympathies or ideas for independent Macedonia in the late 1940s., which has also been confirmed by former prime minister Ljubco Georgievski.
As a conclusion we can say that the ancient Macedonians were part of the Greek world and they still remained in Greece; modern Slav-Macedonians because of the great propaganda from the communist dictatorship of Tito (nearly 60 years of propaganda!!!!) had lost their Bulgarian identity and are claiming a “Macedonian” ethnicity.
Hope I’ve helped
{P.S The user Solun keeps posting incredible arguments! The authentic Macedonia of Greece was always called Macedonia. The term North Greece is a geocraphical term from ancient years- that is still in use- in order to describe the regions of Epirus, authentic-Macedonia, and Thrace. These 3 regions together form Northen Greece. Macedonia was always Macedonia and was never renamed to northen Greece and then renamed Macedonia again! Incredible stupid argument!!!!
P.S 2The Greek word “Macedonia” has been used by Greeks for the beginning of the ancient Greek kingdom. And of course it’s been used for 3.000 years. Long before the Slavs appear in the area. The Slavs later on use only the word Makedonija (a Slavic alternative of the Greek original!)
Just to demonstrate how stupid the argument is about 1988 that the user Soluna uses lets see some examples of pre 1988 usage of the name Macedonia!
Numerous Greek organizations (and the Greeks only!!!) under the Ottoman occupation had and still use the name Macedonia. The most historical is the famous newspaper “Macedonia” established in Thessalonica in 1912!
Almost immediately after the liberation of 1913, authentic Macedonia became a Greek province and was divided in 3 peripheries with their own administrations (peripheries of west, central and eastern Macedonia and they are called like that since 1913 not 1988).
( By the way at that time the name Macedonia was used only by Greece. The modern Slavic/Albania Macedonia was called Vardaska or South Serbia.)
Another example. Three army groups of Greece had been using the name till now! The Greek Army group of western Macedonia (fought in WWI and WWII), the army Group of central Macedonia (Fought also in WWI and WWII) and the same applies for the Army Group of eastern Macedonia.
And of course “The Society for Macedonian Studies (1939)”,
“The museum of ancient Macedonia (1961)” and “The museum of the Macedonian struggle (1979)” . Are those examples enough? Does someone need more?
By the way the 3 peripheries of Authentic Macedonian are EU peripheries and the name “Macedonia” Is protected for regional products! That means that only Greek products from authentic Macedonia can use the name "from Macedonia"!}