Fears of History Repeating Itself?

Explaining Greeces Reaction to Macedonia (FYROM)

Abstract
What explains Greek reluctance to recognize an independent Macedonian
state? Several factors signal to Greeks that the new states existence implies a
territorial threat. Scholars tend to point to memory of earlier Comintern and
Yugoslav designs on the area and promotion of a distinct Macedonian national
identity. Greece also holds the largest part of historic Macedonia, one featuring a
Slavic minority easily interpreted as a basis for future Macedonian irredentism,
while Greeks tend to view Greek and Macedonian identities as one in the same.
Left unconsidered is the legacy of Greeces own experience with territorial
expansionism, forced migration, shifting identities and memory that helps shape
perspectives toward the new Macedonian state. Beyond a successful campaign of
territorial aggrandization, Greece witnessed major periods of identity-based forced
migration in the 20th century: the 191213 Balkan Wars, 1919-22 Greek-Turkish
War, the 1919 and 1923 population exchange agreements and related movements,
and the exodus of many Macedonians decades later. These events helped make
territory Greek, along with successive government efforts to assimilate the many
arriving Christian refugee settlers. Present-day Greek fears must thus be traced to
the perceived threat of the new Macedonian state using similar tactics, and
potentially exacerbated by extending the European Union and a borderless
Europe into historic Macedonia.

Lynn M. Tesser
lmtesser@gmail.com
30 December 2012

Draft: Please do not cite without authors permission

After 1991, the emergence of an independent Republic of Macedonia

introduced a contemporary rendition of the long-running Macedonian question.
While the present version involves contestation over the new republics name, the
larger historical debate has been over where Macedonia lies, which state(s) should
claim it as well as residents national origins. The question appeared to have been
answered nearly a century ago after the 1912-13 Balkan Wars. Then geographical
Macedonia was partitioned between the three expansionist neighbors. Greece
received 50 per cent of this area (Aegean Macedonia), the Kingdom of Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes gained nearly 40 per cent later becoming the Yugoslav and
then the independent Macedonian Republic (Vardar Macedonia), a punished
Bulgaria acquired a mere 10 per cent (Pririn Macedonia), and a small area went to
Albania. The international boundaries dividing Macedonia in 1913 remain largely
the same today, with Greeces northern Macedonian region actually outsizing the
area of the new Macedonian state.
Since 1991, Greece has expressed varying levels of panic over the
emergence of an independent state claiming to be the homeland of the Macedonian
nation. The Greek government refuses to recognize the new country as
Macedonia, leading to the provisional adoption of the Former Yugoslav Republic
of Macedonia (FYROM).1 Greece claims that the area of todays Macedonia was
historically and ethnically Greek and that Macedonians are descendants of ancient
Greek tribes. The Greek government claims exclusive rights on all things related
to the name Macedonia, leaving Macedonians to be understood among Greeks as
referring to Greek speakers of Greeces northern region. A major related objection
is the use of symbols from Greeces Hellenic heritage, seemingly stealing them to
identify the new state with Alexander the Great.2 The initial Macedonian flag also
featured the Vergina star or sun that Greece claims is a symbol of its own national
identity.3 Of similar concern have been references in FYROMs new constitution

The UN Security Council accepted the new state in April 1993 with the FYROM as its official name until an
alternative could be agreed on. This article employs FRYOM to minimize confusion. I use the term Macedonian
to refer to those invoking the term to signify their own national identification, generally referring to the Slavic
majority in FYROM as well as those identifying as non-Greek Macedonians in northern Greece and elsewhere.
While Macedonian identity is a late bloomer, earlier Greek government efforts to eradicate alternative ethnic
identities, promotion of the wartime communist resistance, coupled with the founding of the Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia and subsequent nation-building developments, went a long way in bringing about a widespread selfidentification as Macedonians distinct from Greeks.
2
The dispute escalated in February 1994 when Greece imposed an embargo on Macedonia after the country became
a UN member under its provisional name with the exception of food and medicines. The situation was resolved in
the fall of 1995 after Skopje agreed to alter its flag and underscore that no aspect of the new constitution suggests
claims on Greek territory.
3
The Vergina sun or star was used on Macedonias national flag from 1991-95 before agreeing to its alteration in
response to Greek pressure. It was also adopted by Greek Macedonia for the regional flag in 1993.

to the idea of protecting Macedonians abroad.4 Roudometof notes that efforts to

separate Greek and Macedonian identities through FYROMs establishment is an
implicit threat to modern Greek identity by claiming that the ancient or modern
Macedonians were or are not Greek5
Across the political and media landscape, the trend in Greece has indeed
been to interpret the Macedonian issue as a matter of territorial integrity. Greece
associates the term Macedonia and its linkage with FYROM as part of a
communist plot to annex parts of Greece to Titos Yugoslavia,6 while concern has
also been shown over Turkeys alignment with FYROM and potential changes in
the regional balance of power.7 Media coverage explained the reemergence of the
Macedonian question as owing to Slavic or even communist plans to take the
northern lands,8 an interpretation owing to earlier Comintern policy urging further
revolution in the Balkans through support for a free Macedonia and the related
threat from Greeces northern socialist neighbors all having designs on Aegean
Macedonia. Events and developments around 1991 also created the context for
these concerns. With the wars of Yugoslav dissolution, particularly the catalyzing
force of the Greater Serbia and to a lesser extent Greater Croatia campaigns, it
would not be inconceivable to suspect the Macedonians of Vardar Macedonia to
undertake a similar initiative. Greece, in addition to Bulgaria, views recognition of
Macedonian minorities in their respective states as a step on the path to future
Macedonian irredentism.9
The Greek governments hard-line stance owed particularly to Greek
Foreign Minister Antonis Samaras and the use of fears over Macedonian
irredentism to legitimate this view. While Samaras was soon forced from his
position and then his parliament seat and membership in the conservative New
Democracy, his views remained influential on Greek policy. 10 The socialist
PASOK returned to power after the 1993 elections, replacing Greeces
4

FYROMs parliament adopted two amendments in 1992 renouncing any territorial claims against the new
countrys neighbors and that any future border changes would follow international norms.
5
Victor Roudometof, Nationalism and Identity Politics in the Balkans: Greece and the Macedonian Question,
Journal of Modern Greek Studies v. 14, no. 2, spring 1996: 253, 284
6
Roudometof 1996: 276
7
Anastasia Karakasidou, Politicizing Culture: Negating Ethnic Identity in Greek Macedonia, Journal of Modern
Greek Studies, v.19, n.3, summer 1993: 14, 16. Evangelos Kofos also notes a considerable degree of
misinformation in all parts of Greek society regarding events and developments in Yugoslavia as well as Bulgaria
since the post-Second World War period assisting Greek nationalism over the name issue [The Macedonian
Question: The Politics of Mutation, Balkan Studies 27 (1986): 157-72].
8
Ibid., 14-15
9
Roudometof 1996: 269
10
Victor Roudometof, op.cit., 260-261. A poll taken after Greece imposed an embargo in 1994 on the movement of
goods from Thessaloniki to the new country indicated that over 66 per cent of Athenian Greeks approved of the
socialists hardline policy (Ibid., 262). Yet, the post-Cold War West could not so easily understand a new
independent Macedonian state as a potential threat to Greece using Macedonian identity to claim Aegean Macedonia
(Veremis 1997: 227).

conservative government, though without witnessing any movement on the

Macedonian issue,11 or an immediate change in close collaboration between
Greece and Serbia on the matter.12 The Greek publics response to the
reappearance of the Macedonian question was quite pronounced with mass
demonstrations held at home and abroad. In February 1992 and again about two
years later, roughly one million took to the streets of Thessaloniki to show their
support for the Macedonia is Greek campaign, with the issue particularly
dominant in Greek politics in 1992-93.13 Large demonstrations were held in
Athens and Salonika against the Skopjans, their counterfeit nation and the
pseudo-Macedonians.14
The Greek government has also faced the aftermath of the forced migrations
of Slavic-speakers associated with Macedonian identity from northern Greece in
the mid- and late-1940s. Some continue to press for the return of their former
property a demand made by FYROMs leading nationalist party.15 The Greek
government continues to restrict the return of the many still residing in FYROM,
as well as the restitution of their lost property. 16 There is also the matter of EU
expansion to an area still undergoing implicit territorial contestation. The prospect
of free movement across the Greek-Macedonian border is likely to exacerbate
Greek fears of Macedonian irredentism as well as Macedonian concerns over
Greece.
This paper offers a new explanation for Greek paranoia over Macedonian
statehood. While noting the importance of Yugoslav (and earlier Comintern)
policy and strategy, overlooked is memory of Greeces expansion and reliance on
forced migration in conditions of shifting identities. Contemporary rhetoric and
politics toward the new state are explained not as unique to the present, but in
reference to 20th century tendencies in Greek policy toward Macedonia as well as
fears of a link with Greeces arch-rival Turkey. Greek fears are not merely the
result of memory of communist promotion of a free Macedonia or of the
Yugoslav support for Macedonian national identity to secure additional territory
and the understanding that cultures do change, borders do shrink or expand
accordingly, and identities are often imagined or, better, re-imagined.17
Previous Greek governments have pursued territorial expansionism as well as
11

Roudometof, op. cit. 261

Andrew Rossos, Macedonia and the Macedonians: A History, Hoover Institution Press, Stanford 2008: 271
13
Roudometof, op.cit., 259-260
14
Rossos, op.cit., 270
15
Roughly 30,000-40,000 refugees from the Greek civil war living in Macedonia desired to return to their former
homes in Greece in the early 1990s (Roudometof, op.cit., 270).
16
See Monova 2002 and 2010 on the Macedonians from Greek Macedonia.
17
Peter Mackridge and Eleni Yannakakis, Introduction, in Peter Mackridge and Eleni Yannakakis (eds),
Ourselves and Others: The Development of a Greek Macedonian Cultural Identity Since 1912, Berg Publishers,
Oxford and New York 1997: 4
12

expulsions/exchanges of minorities and Hellenization campaigns to forge a

seemingly pure Greek nation-state. An understanding of this past makes a future
with an independent Macedonian state bordering Greek Macedonia with a Slavic
minority appear far more threatening. What is to stop FYROM from eventually
using the same tactics against Greece, particularly given symbolically provocative
moves like renaming the Skopje airport after Alexander the Great? The
nationalist-led government has also attempted to reconstruct ancient Macedonia
through urban renewal and related projects. While present-day security has been
assured, a longer-term view of history makes it seem less certain. A wider view of
the historical record with Greece once far smaller helps to explain concerns
about Macedonian irredentism even at a time of great asymmetry of military
capabilities between Greece and FYROM.18 After a closer look at Macedonian
identity and Greek nation-state building, a final section then turns to trends in
Macedonian politics after 1991 in light of the contested nature of the state.
The High Stakes of Defining Macedonian Identity
For more than 500 years, the geographic area known as Macedonia remained
part of the Ottoman Empire. The culture of the region became a matter of political
dispute as early as the establishment of a separate Bulgarian church (Exarchate) in
the 19th century distinct from the Greek Orthodox Church (Patriarchate) peaking
in the Macedonian Struggle between 1904 and 1908 with Bulgaria and Greece
competing for the religious allegiances of Slavic speakers.19 Along with the
Greater Bulgaria concept and accompanying stress on territorial expansion, the
Exarchate and Bulgarian national elites began referring to the Slavic-speaking
population of Macedonia as Bulgarian, while the Greeks made a distinction
between those who went with the Bulgarian church (Bulgarians) and those that
remained as Greeks.20 Armed struggles in this historic region later occurred
between Greek, Bulgarian, and to a lesser extent Serb bands not to mention
Macedonian separatists (nationalists). When coupled with competing campaigns
to have Slavic speakers self-identify as Greeks, Bulgarians or Serbs, they set the
stage for long-term competition over the area of historic Macedonia, with the
development of a Macedonian national identity hindered by the absence of

18

Mackridge and Yannakakis, op. cit.: 42-43

Latter point made by Mackridge and Yannakakis 1997: 5. Macedonia had never been an administrative unit in
the Ottoman Empire. The Porte designated the area as the three vilayets of Manastir (Monastir or Bitola), Selanik
(Thessaloniki) and Kosovo.
20
Karakasidou, op.cit., 19. Focused more exclusively on Western Macedonia (meaning the western part of Greek
Macedonia) in 1916-20, Mylonas notes a distinction made between the Greek-leaning Slavs claiming allegiance to
the Orthodox Patriarchate in Istanbul and the Bulgarian-leaning Slavs claiming allegiance to the Bulgarian
Exarchate and deemed a Bulgarian national minority by Bulgaria (2012: 129).
19

institutional support and international sympathy.21 While the Internal Macedonian

Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) was formed in 1893 with the goal of taking
Macedonia from the Ottoman Empire, its members could not agree over whether
independent statehood or Bulgarian annexation should be the ultimate goal.22
Ethnography was of increasing importance in border determination, a fact
conveyed by the use of ethnographic maps in frontier drawing after the 1878
Treaty of San Stefano and the delineation of a Greater Bulgaria, though reduced
in size after Austrian and British objections at the subsequent Berlin Congress.
Serbia, Romania and Montenegro were also recognized at Berlin as independent
states, and Bulgaria as a principality, based to a significant degree on presumed
ethnography presented in 1876 map of German geographer Heinrich Kiepert.23
Bulgarias initial success in territorial gains set a precedent for drawing borders
based on arguments and evidence over the intrinsic national character of the areas
inhabitants. Their presumed religion, linguistic repertoire, ethnic identity and
degree of national consciousness would have much increased relevance in
determining where borders should lie. Complicating the process was a situation in
which most of the first ethnographers of the Macedonian area were allied with
nationalists, showing a tendency to simply impose national designations on
inhabitants still largely conceiving of themselves with respect to religion, ethnicity,
and language.24 This practice continued on through the post-First World War and
21

Rossos, op.cit., p.61. The initial signs of Macedonian nationalism came earlier in the 19 th century from a few
intellectuals in urban centers such as Thessaloniki, Sophia, Belgrade, and St. Petersburg (Loring M. Danforth, The
Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1995:
56). Roudometof claims that a sense of distinction slowly emerged in the mid-19th century and afterwards among
Slavs in Macedonia (1996: 262). Rossos specifies the 1860s as presenting the first clear signs of a distinct
Macedonian consciousness (Rossos, op.cit., p.61). Concerning the area of Western Macedonia (the western part of
Greek Macedonia), Mylonas notes that confidential reports of the Greek administration drew attention to residents
fluid national consciousness, with Greek policy-makers certain in the 1910s that a pure Greek element existed
merely as a minority in this area (2012: 119). Mylonas chapter 6 on Greek nation-building in Western Macedonia
in 1916-20 focuses on the reports of Ioannis Eliakis. A close friend of Prime Minister Venizelos Eleftherios, Eliakis
was the areas Governor-General and focused primarily on its integration into the Greek nation-state. Table 6.1 lists
sixteen non-core (minority) groups in the area in 1915. Four are listed as being Slavic speakers (Bulgarian-leaning
Slavs, Greek-leaning Slavs, Pomaks, and itaklar), with the Slavic-speaking population comprising the largest
Christian group in the area (2012: 121, 129). An official 1925 report on the ethnography of Greek Macedonia lists
three primary categories of Slav Macedonians: Slavophones of strong pro-Greek feelings, Slavophones of strong
pro-Bulgarian feelings, and Slavophones lacking a national identity and not caring about such an identity (noted
in Koliopoulos 1997: 45). Danforth notes that the Greek governments assimilation policies in Greek Macedonia
were quite successful in leading the areas refugees, Arvanites, Vlachs, and Greek-speaking local Macedonians to
affiliate with Greek national identity. Exceptional were areas such as the districts of Florina, Kastoria and Edhessa
(Lerin, Kostur and Voden) in which residents self-identified more as Macedonians than as Greeks in the national
sense. Significant was the class differences between the Slavic-speaking poor farmers living in rural villages and
the others possessing more land and could thus have easier entry into the urban middle class (1995: 71).
22
Mackridge and Yannakakis 1997: 9
23
Henry Robert Wilkinson, Maps and Politics: A Review of the Ethnographic Cartography of Macedonia,
University Press of Liverpool, Liverpool 1951: 68.
24
Loring M. Danforth, op.cit., p.57

the drawing of new or renewed nation-states on the basis of the maps of Jovan
Cviji, then one of the most revered Balkan geographers. Cvijis maps denoted
the existence of Macedeo-Slavs, a step in the newly designated Kindom of Serbs,
Croats, and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia) being able to keep a significant portion of
historic Macedonia after the war.25
The outbreak of the 1912-13 Balkan wars came from competing claims to
Macedonia, with Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia attempting to legitimate claims to
territory with reference to religion, language, ethnicity and development of
national consciousness.26 The post-First World War settlement reconfirmed the
partition of geographic Macedonia with minor border alterations, giving further
territorial rewards to Greece and the incipient Yugoslavia. The British government
played a key role in developing an agreement that provided further benefits to her
two major client states and wished to avoid any possibility of acknowledging the
existence of a Macedonian identity for fear of having to change borders according
to the principle of national self-determination.27 The policy was based on the
Foreign Offices understanding of British interests centering on the control of the
Mediterranean, and specifically Constantinople and the Straits.28 Ironically, it
created a means for increasing communist and ultimately Soviet influence in the
Balkans by making possible an ideological alliance between communism and
nationalism. Britains main rival, the Soviet Union, would replace this European
power as the Balkans later moved into the USSRs sphere of influence,29 while the
US government adopted the British line on Macedonian identity.30
Of major significance for the rise of a narrative of the founding and
development of a Macedonian nation as well as the spread of Macedonian national
consciousness was the 1944 establishment of the Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia.31 Even during the Second World War, most Macedonians lacked a
clear expression of a national identity with many likely self-identifying more as
Bulgarians (at least until Bulgarian nationalism helped sway most Vardar
Macedonians towards affiliation with the new Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia).32
With the occupation of Greece came competing communist campaigns aimed at
the Slavic speakers in Aegean Macedonia: to instill a Bulgarian national identity
25

Ibid., p.65
Ibid., p.28
27
Rossos, op.cit., pp.125, 127
28
Ibid.,, p.124
29
Ibid., p.142
30
Nikolas Zahariadis, Greek Policy Toward the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Journal of Modern
Greek Studies, v.14, n.2, spring 1996: 318
31
Yet, Danforth maintains that it is hard to ascertain the extent of Macedonian national consciousness when the
Communist Party of Yugoslavia recognized a Macedonian nation in the 1940s (1995: 65).
32
Rae 2002: 277-278. Roudometof notes Bulgarian occupiers condescending attitude and mistreatment towards
the local population in 1941-44 contributing to a decline of pro-Bulgarian attitudes (1996: 264).
26

for the Bulgarians; to promote identification with Macedonian national identity for
the Yugoslav Communists; and to provide equal rights in a forthcoming peoples
democracy for the Greek Communist Party.33 The Yugoslavs in particular
encouraged the formation of Slav-Macedonian resistance units in Aegean
Macedonia, with the Greek Communists assenting given the large number of
Slavic speakers joining in the resistance. It was at this time, in areas controlled by
the resistance, that Macedonian or Slav-Macedonian national identity
developed among residents of northern Greece previously understanding
themselves as Macedonians in the ethnic or regional sense.34
While many in Vardar Macedonia identified with Bulgarian identity
implying annexation by Bulgaria according to the principle of national selfdetermination, Yugoslav policy recognized the Slavs in this area as Macedonians
as well as the Macedonian nation. Yugoslavia could then lay claim to Vardar
Macedonia, establishing a republic as the Macedonian national state. Looking to
the future, this policy also laid the groundwork for potentially expanding Yugoslav
control over Pririn and Aegean Macedonia under Bulgarian and Greek sovereignty
respectively.35 For Greeks in particular, the subsequent association with Tito and
Yugoslavia and clear interest in cultivating Macedonian identity to make additional
territorial claims makes it appear a wholesale fabrication especially as
developments in the 1940s led to a situation in Greek Macedonia featuring two
opposed national identities (Greek and Macedonian) out of inhabitants having
shared a common regional identity in previous times.36 There was also a campaign
of the Communist resistance to create a Free Greece out of territory to be
detached from Greek Macedonia within a proposed Balkan Federation considered
by Communist party leaders in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.37 These plans and the
promotion of Macedonian identity were very much about territorial expansion at
great cost for Greece.
Further complicating matters is the simultaneous existence of Macedonian as
a regional identity. Those living within the geographical region of Macedonia may
use the term to denote regional identification. Yet, the development of a GreekMacedonian regional identity in particular has also been characterized as the
regional equivalent of Greek nation-building since independence from Ottoman
rule.38 It exists as a subcategory of Greek nationality, more as a regional or ethnic
identity even while Greek Macedonia has its own anthem, flag featuring the
33

Loring M. Danforth, op.cit., p.73

Ibid., 73-74
35
Ibid.., 66
36
Ibid., 76
37
Ibid.,124
38
Mackridge and Yannakakis, op.cit., p.1
34

Vergina sun or star, and capital in Thessaloniki.39 This is an identity distinct

from the efforts of the unofficial Macedonian minority to gain rights of language
use, the right of return for those who fled or were expelled in the mid- and late1940s, and to hold public cultural activities.40 Yet, the population of Greek
Macedonia remains nearly entirely Greek Orthodox with most having Greek as
native language.41 Today, the main axis of confrontation ultimately lies between
Greece and a Macedonian national identity (and state) defined independently of
Greek culture. This brief historical overview, one that continues in the following
section, illuminates why debates over Macedonian identity have territorial
implications.
Beyond Communist Designs on Northern Greece: Explaining Greek Paranoia
towards FYROM
To be sure, Greeces seemingly irrational reaction to the appearance of a
Macedonian state appears more rational when recalling Yugoslav strategy
surrounding the creation of a Macedonian republic in the federation. The Greater
Serbia and Greater Croatia campaigns of the 1990s also hinted at the possibility
at least in theory of a Greater Macedonia campaign at a time when demography
appeared to have great significance for border revision. Yet, such a focus excludes
attention to memory of Greeces own experience with territorial expansionism,
forced migration, and shifting identities. The Greek side cannot also but wonder if
the strategies and tactics used by its predecessors to create an enlarged
Hellenized nation-state will be copied by FYROM and Macedonian nationalists.
The significance sharply increases when recognizing that Greeks understand
Macedonians as Greeks in its northern region.42
At its birth in 1832, the Kingdom of Greece was far smaller than the Greece
of today, occupying an area roughly half the size. Subsequent expansion would
conform to the central feature of Greek nationalist ideology: the Megali Idea
(Great Idea). It celebrated the notion of recreating the Byzantine Empire at its
peak through the unification of all Greek-speaking lands lost to the Ottomans. The
1912-13 Balkan Wars brought significant territorial gains, particularly the
acquisition of a major part of geographical Macedonia. Greek settlement of the
39

Danforth. op.cit., p.83

Karakasidou 1993 gives an account of how Greek nation-building helped make the Macedonian ethnic identity
into a national one.
41
Mackridge and Yannakakis, op.cit., p.6
42
Greeces historical experience has also led officials, as well as journalists and academics, to express skepticism
over the long-term viability of a multinational Macedonian state that runs in sharp contrast to Greeces nation-state
affording no recognition to national minorities. Noteworthy too is that Bulgarian and Serb nationalists have
challenged Macedonian national identity [Macedonias Name: Breaking the Deadlock, Europe Briefing No. 52,
International Crisis Group, Brussels (12 January 2009): 3,7].
40

area then began when many public servants, military personnel, teachers and
refugees of Greek heritage from Asia Minor moved into Greeces new northern
area.43 Greece also gained the southern part of Epirus and occupied the northern
part in 1918-23, before the latter came under Albanian sovereignty in 1923. The
year 1923 brought other significant territorial changes, including the ceding of
Western Thrace to Greece and Eastern Thrace to Turkey.
Equally significant have been mass population movements, particularly the
move of Orthodox Greek-speakers, to the newly acquired-territories of (Aegean)
Macedonia and Western Thrace.44 Major demographic shifts left the percentage
of those defined as Greeks in Greek Macedonia to increase from 43 per cent in
1912 to 86 per cent in 1926.45 The official exchange agreements included the 1919
Convention for the Voluntary and Reciprocal Emigration of Minorities Between
Bulgaria and Greece allowing, in official terms, for the voluntary resettlement of
those associated with Bulgarian or Greek identity living as minorities. The second
agreement came with the 1923 Greek-Turkish exchange that was made compulsory
in light of difficulties implementing the earlier exchange. A key circumstance
surrounding the 1919 Convention was that Greece and Bulgaria continued to have
conflicting claims over Macedonia and Thrace, leading to differing approaches to
the Convention. Since its voluntary nature did not spur the respective minorities to
leave their homes, the Greek government more readily took measures to spur
emigration. The Greek side supported swift implementation so as to bring more
Greeks to inhabit and homogenize the still diverse new lands in the north with
their Slavic, Jewish and Muslim inhabitants.46 Several goals were to be achieved
through this colonization: to alter the ethnographic balance in a way perceived as
beneficial for Greece, to work against Bulgarias efforts to gain influence in the
border area by creating a buffer zone, and to have additional labor needed for
postwar reconstruction. The hope was that a sizeable number of Greeks from
Bulgaria would move and then enhance the Greekness of the new lands and give
the minorities little choice but emigration. Otherwise the Greek government had
its fears that Greeks would not leave given the voluntary nature of the Convention
and potentially even forfeit their identity in a nationalizing Bulgaria.47 Bulgarian
authorities, in contrast, did not encourage emigration of Slavic-speakers gravitating

43

Karakasidou, op.cit., 10
Prior to these movements in 1912, the Slavic-speaking population gravitating towards Macedonian regional
identity was 250,000 or nearly 22 per cent of the population in Greek Macedonia.
45
Danforth, op.cit., p.69
46
Theodora Dragostinova, Navigating Nationality in the Emigration of Minorities between Bulgaria and Greece,
1919-1941, East European Politics and Societies, v.23, n.2, spring 2009, pp.187, 191
47
Ibid., 191-192
44

10

towards Bulgarian identity in Greece so as to maintain a Bulgarian presence in

these areas.48
What eventually made the official 1919 Bulgarian-Greek exchange a reality
was the aftermath of the 1920-22 Greek-Turkish War, the subsequent official
population exchange in 1923 as well as the ceding of Western Thrace to Greece.
The interning of entire Bulgarian villages in the newly acquired territory led to the
departure of many Bulgarians for Bulgaria. While the Bulgarian government
stressed that the exchange was to be voluntary and insisted on Bulgarians return to
Greece, the Greek government did not allow their return and focused instead on
settling the arrivals in available residences of the departed.49 Though both
governments signed the Geneva Protocol for the Protection of Minorities between
Bulgaria and Greece in September 1924, pressures continued in Greece for the
Bulgarians to leave, leading the Bulgarian government to take reciprocal measures
towards Greeks in Bulgaria.50 There was also the mass resettling of 500,000 Greek
refugees from Asia Minor which, according to an observer from the British
Foreign office, helped propel further compulsory migration as: incoming Greeks
were planted on the Slavophone villagers to such an extent that life was made
unbearable for them and they were forced to emigrate.51 The result was an
exchange that brought about 50,000 from Bulgaria, a small number in contrast to
the roughly 1.5 million coming from the former Ottoman Empire in the 1920s,52
and the emigration of most Bulgarian Greeks with the transfer largely completed
by 1925. Thus the 1919 voluntary exchange can be considered another instance
of forced migration.
With far larger numbers on the move, the Greek-Turkish exchange was a
significant boost to Greeces official homogenization through refugee settlement in
the newly acquired northern areas. After the First World War, approximately
638,000 Greeks from Asia Minor settled in northern Greece out of the 1.5
million Greeks resettling in connection with the Lausanne Convention.53 The 1923
Orthodox/Greek and Muslim/Turkish population exchange was motivated, in part,
to render Greek irredentist designs on western Orthodox/Greek-inhabited areas
essentially unthinkable. The interwar Greek government then sought to cultivate
loyalty among remaining minorities as well as the refugees.54 For the latter the
48

Ibid., 192
Ibid., 193-194
50
British reports on developments in Vardar Macedonia signaled that Serbias 1913 occupation also witnessed a
policy of suppression and assimilation towards the Macedonians (Andrew Rossos, The British Foreign Office and
Macedonian National Identity, 1918-1941, Slavic Review, v.52, n.2, spring 1994: 372).
51
Rossos 1994, op.cit., 384
52
Dragostinova, op.cit., p.188
53
Robert Paul Magocsi, Historical Atlas of Central Europe, University of Washington, Seattle 2002, p.169
54
Yet, the project saw only mixed success given support for the Bulgarian occupiers among some Slavic-speakers
(Bulgarian-speakers) during the Second World War (Dragostinova, op.cit., 190).
49

11

authorities provided peasants with state and church lands as well as lands bought
from larger estates vacated by departing Turks or expelled Macedonians.55
The Greek government orchestrated a Hellenization campaign to assimilate
the diverse identities in the newly acquired Aegean Macedonia and to integrate
them into the Greek state. Beyond lasting decades, the process reached the height
of repression when the countrys parliamentary democracy was replaced by the
right-wing dictatorship of General Ioannis Metaxas (1936-41). After 1936, the
regime ramped up its efforts to destroy all signs of Macedonian culture. Greek
authorities deported many Macedonians living near the Yugoslav border and
subjected tens of thousands to torture in prisons or police stations.56 The Slavic
names of hundreds of towns and villages were also changed. In 1936 came a law
requiring all Slavic first and last names to be Hellenized and the use of local Slavic
dialects to be persecuted heavily.57 While the policy was generally successful in
cultivating Greek national identity among the refugees, the Vlachs and others, it
was less true for some Slavic-speakers in the western Macedonian districts of
Florina, Kastoria, and Edhessa with many identifying more as Macedonians than
Greeks. The explanation for the divergent outcomes largely lies in the class
differences and tension between the Slavic-speakers who tended to be
impoverished farmers living in small rural villages and the other identities
frequently in possession of more land (in many cases, acquired from the Turks or
Muslims leaving in the population exchanges) that allowed easier entry to the
urban middle class. Internal Greek government documents from the 1930s confirm
the situation in the prefect of Florina, for example, with 61 per cent estimated as
Slavic-speaking Macedonians.58
The main obstacle to the thoroughgoing
Hellenization of Greek Macedonia was resistance among Slavic-speakers to
assimilation occurring from the 1920s-1940s.59 Figures from the 1928 and 1940
Greek censuses on Slavophone Greeks include 82,000 and 86,000 respectively
though likely represent only half given various reasons for obscuring identity.60
The ultimate result of the homogenization campaign was the unintended
transformation of a Macedonian regional or ethnic identity into one defined in
national terms.61 Reports from the British Foreign Office signaled the existence of
a Macedonian identity distinct from its Serb and Bulgarian counterparts later in

55

Rossos 2008, op.cit.,146

Ibid., 145
57
Danforth, op.cit., 69
58
Ibid.., p.71
59
Mackridge and Yannakakis, op.cit., 7
60
Ibid., 50-51
61
Karakasidou, op.cit., 7
56

12

1930, even while British interests dictated that it be overlooked.62 And while
Macedonians in Greece as well as Serbia found themselves subject to aggressive
assimilation campaigns, Bulgaria provided greater freedoms for Macedonian
cultural and political life in Pririn Macedonia.63
Immediately prior to the Second World War, the two primary right/left
positions on Macedonian statehood were: to establish a united and independent
state or to have an entity in a Balkan federation under the communist banner. The
latter was endorsed by the Comintern in 1923 and supported by Greek, Bulgarian,
and Yugoslav communist parties as well as the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary
Organization (United).64 With the Second World War came the invasion of Greece
by the Axis powers, leaving the country to essentially disappear as a political
entity. During the wartime occupations (1941-43), most Macedonians found
themselves subject to takeover by foreign powers desiring to implant their national
identity particularly in the case of the Bulgarian and Italian-Albanian areas.65 In
spring 1941, Greek Macedonia fell under the control of the Germans (central
Macedonia) with the Bulgarians taking eastern Macedonia as well as western
Thrace. Under the German and Bulgarian occupation, parts of the Slavic-speaking
population expressed anti-Greek sentiments, with the Bulgarian occupiers
undertaking a campaign to win over the Slavic-speakers.66 In areas experiencing
the German occupation, the Greek Communist Party organized the resistance with
the intention of gaining the support of the Slavic-speaking residents through
promises of equal rights.67 The Yugoslav Communists were similarly active in
developing resistance in Greek Macedonia to help build a Macedonian national
identity to at least acquire a portion of Greek Macedonia.68 Greek estimates at the
time put the number of collaborators as being up to 65 per cent of the
Slavophones.69 Greek sources also estimate that Slav-Macedonians made up 30
per cent of the communist-led Democratic Army.70
This wartime period showed signs of the wider development of Macedonian
national identity rather than merely a local or regional ethnic identity.71 With the
Greek Communist Partys reluctant support, the Slav-Macedonian National
62

Andrew Rossos, Great Britain and Macedonian Statehood and Unification 1940-49, East European Politics and
Societies, 14, n.1, winter 1999: 126-127
63
Rossos 2008., 146-48
64
Rossos 1999, 122-123
65
Rossos 2008, 183-84
66
Danforth, op.cit., 73
67
Yet, Greek communists would only support equality for all national minorities in Greece and not a Macedonian
state.
68
Danforth, op.cit., 73
69
Wilkinson, op.cit., 301
70
Danforth, op.cit., 74
71
Ibid.

13

Liberation Front formed in northern Greece and advanced the notion of the
secession of Greek Macedonia and its attachment to the newly emerging Yugoslav
Macedonian republic.72 This goal was nearly achieved after the ramping up of
partisan warfare increased the number of Greek refugees fleeing to the south,
leaving a reduced number of Greeks in German-occupied Macedonia. As the Axis
lost power, the Yugoslav partisans and the Bulgarians also competed for the favor
of Greeces Slavic-speakers demonstrating attachment to a Macedonian identity
still defined in regional terms. Once taking power in Vardar Macedonia, the
Communists intended to alter the moderate pro-Bulgarian orientation of a
considerable part of the population.73
After liberation, Greece witnessed a sharp shift to the right after the 1946
elections.
The government of Prime Minister George Papandreou made
ideological allies of nationalism and anti-communism. The subsequent success of
the Greek military then brought refugee resettlement,74 with right-wing violence
also breaking out in the provinces. The rights persecution of the left helped spark
the ensuing civil war fought between the governments army and the Greek
Democratic Army the military wing of the Greek Communist Party and
mainly in the northern Greek province of Macedonia.75 Refugees continued to
steam out during the ensuing civil war, leaving Greek figures on the number
fleeing the northern provinces to approach one million, and the sense that few
Greeks remained.76 During the civil war, many of the Slavic-speakers in northern
Greece actively fought with the communist guerillas in opposition to the royalist
government77 leaving the Greek communists to appear as foreign agents bent on
severing Macedonia from the country.78 Much of the civil wars ferocity indeed
relates to the Communist Partys linkage with sedition within Greek Macedonia.79
Greeces Slavic-speakers who gravitated toward Macedonian identity also had help

72

Latter point made by Wilkinson, op.cit., 301. See Rossos on the ways in which various communist parties worked
at competing purposes during the Second World War and the Greek civil war (Andrew Rossos, Incompatible
Allies: Greek Communism and Macedonian Nationalism in the Civil War in Greece, 1943-1949, The Journal of
Modern History, v.69, n.1, winter 1997: 42-76).
73
Kofos 1993: 291-304
74
Wilkinson, op.cit., p.303
75
The formation of the Slav-Macedonian National Liberation Front also helped bring the Slavic population over to
the communist side during the civil war (Roudometof, op.cit., p.270).
76
Wilkinson, op.cit., 301
77
Miladina Monova, The Impossible Citizenship: The Case of Macedonians, Refugees from the Greek Civil War
in the Republic of Macedonia, Anna Krasteva et al. (ed), Migrations from and to Southeastern Europe, Longo
Editore, Ravenna 2010, 255.
78
Koliopoulos 1997: 46. For a detailed study of the strained partnership between the Greek Communist Party, the
only party in Greece that recognized Macedonian national identity and existence, and Macedonians during the civil
war see Rossos 1997.
79
Koliopoulos 1997: 46

14

from neighboring Yugoslavia. Following Comintern policy from interwar times,80

Tito and the partisans reiterated the goal of uniting of the Greek, Bulgarian, and
Yugoslav parts of Macedonia into a singular autonomous Yugoslav Macedonia.81
To this end, Titos new federal Yugoslav state helped organize the guerillas among
the socially marginalized Slavic speakers in northern Greece.82 More important
was the promotion of Macedonian identity to acquire more territory, 83 particularly
with the founding of national language.84 Memory of this strategy has been an
important force behind Greek worries over the new Macedonian state. And with
power shifting to Yugoslavia and the communist side, the previous British policy
of denying the existence of Macedonian identity would be superseded.
When the communists lost, at least 30,000 fled to Yugoslavia in the 1940s
with others expelled or relocated by force.85 Thousands of civilians also fled their
villages in Central and Western Greek Macedonia, with many crossing the
northern border and then settling in the Macedonian republic. Most affected were
villages closest to the Albanian and Yugoslav borders with Slavic-speaking
residents the Greek Communist Party recognized as Slavo-Macedonian.86
Subsequent decrees stripped the refugees (stigmatized as Slavo-communists or
secessionists) of their Greek citizenship (leaving them stateless), confiscated their
property, before designating sensitive areas in the north for re-population so as to
replace the departed.87

80

Monova describes the varying views of the maximalists and the minimalists on this issue [Miladina Monova,
Parcours dxil, rcits de non-retour: Les Egens en Rpublique de Macdoine, ditions ANRT, Paris 2002
(monograph: Ph.D. Dissertation),60-61]. The Soviet-sponsored campaign for international communism in the 1920s
indeed defined Greeces Slavic-speakers gravitating toward Macedonian regional identity as members of a nation
separate from the Greeks.
81
Macedonias Name, op.cit., 3. The Greek Communist Party also declared its support for an independent
Macedonia in line with Comintern policy.
82
Monova 2002, op.cit., 57
83
The Bulgarian Communist Partys recognition of the nations existence also stemmed from self-interest: that a
one-day independent Macedonia might come under Bulgarian sovereignty. By 1956, however, the Party reversed its
position and opted to no longer recognize a Macedonian nationality.
84
The creation of a Macedonian Yugoslav republic allowed the founding of literary Macedonian based on the westcentral dialect as the official language of the Republic of Macedonia that helped bridge the gap between the
geographical and linguistic distance (Danforth, op.cit., 67).
85
Mark Mazower, The Cold War and the Appropriation of Memory: Greece After Liberation, in Istvn Dek, Jan
T. Gross, and Tony Judt (eds), The Politics of Retribution in Europe: World War II and its Aftermath, Princeton
University Press, Princeton 2000, 228.
86
Monova 2010, op.cit., 255-256
87
Ibid., 256. Since 1948, the singular official document for the refugees living in Yugoslavia has been the
Foreigner Identity Card for the many who did not wish to claim Yugoslav citizenship. Monova notes the
significance of the identity card with names displayed in Macedonian: the increasing strength of Macedonian
nationalism and the validation of an old political claim of the Macedonian arm of the Greek Communist Party
interpreting the Macedonian names in these documents to signal that the free part of Macedonia has become a
political fact. With the emergence of an independent Macedonian state, however, the cardholders could no longer
renew their documents every three years and had to forfeit their vague status (Monova 2010, op.cit., 258-259).

15

While it is somewhat more challenging to determine the extent of forced

migration of the Slavic-speakers after the civil war between communist and noncommunist forces, at least 50,000 Macedonians were expelled while roughly
21,000 perished.88 Those who left were then allowed back to Greece only if they
made declarations of being Greek by race,89 making property restitution
essentially out of the question. The Greek civil war also led to the expulsion of the
ams (approximately 25,000), an Albanian minority living along the coastal area
of southern Epirus to Albania.90 Epirus had fallen under the Italian occupation
during the Second World War, helping to cultivate suspicions over their loyalty to
the Greek state after the wars end.
In the 1940s, northern Greeces Slavic-speakers split into two groups with
different national identities in hostile opposition to one another: Greeks and
Macedonians. Many of the latter left after the Civil War for the Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia and other East European countries, while the remaining
42,000 Slavic-speakers stayed on and faced mistrust and hostility despite many
having likely developed a Greek identity.91 Those remaining were subject to
persecution including taking language oaths to speak only Greek as well as having
their property confiscated. Several laws were passed soon after the war similarly
expropriated the property of those forfeiting their Greek citizenship as they fought
on the communist side or left the country unlawfully, even if their family members
continued to reside in these properties. The same laws also allowed potentially
seditious persons to be removed from border areas and replaced with those
demonstrating a clear commitment to Greece. This colonization process of the
Greek Macedonian border areas continued into the 1960s.92 Earlier, Yugoslavia
and Greece reestablished friendly bilateral relations in 1951, with Belgrade
occasionally bringing up the matter of minority rights for Macedonians in Greece,
specifically in Aegean Macedonia. Many of the refugees also emigrated to
Western countries in the 1970s. A Macedonian human rights movement
nevertheless developed in northern Greece in the 1980s. Many participants were
the descendants of those punished severely by the Greek government during the
civil war, some for their support of the idea of a Free Greece detached from
Aegean Macedonia and existing within a Balkan Federation.93 Such circumstances

88

These are estimates of Risto Kirjazovski (Monova 2002, op.cit., 89).

Mark Mazower, op.cit., 228
90
Magosci, op.cit., 193
91
Danforth, op.cit.,76 (figure from Kofos 1964: 187). Kofos claims that it is difficult to estimate the number of
Slavic speakers remaining in Greek Macedonia at the time of publication (Ibid.).
92
Ibid., 76-77
93
Ibid., 124
89

16

only further the notion that any Macedonian minority in Greece could only be a
sign of Macedonian irredentism.94
The Greek government approved the return of the refugees and the
restitution of their property in 1982-85, albeit restricted to ethnic Greeks to keep
out self-designated Macedonians.95 The need to prove their Greek origin led to
resentment among the Slavic-speaking migr population, especially given that
many were children when forced to leave Greece.96 It is nevertheless possible
since 1995 for the former Greek citizens to visit Greek Macedonia, provided that
they receive a new passport listing the Greek name of their birthplaces (as opposed
to the old Slavic version) or simply leaving the area blank though birthplaces are
not even given in the new passports.97 This policy helps minimize any potential
future FYROM claim to Greeces northern Macedonian region.
While Greek paranoia over the new Macedonian state owes much to
Yugoslav strategy towards the acquisition of Vardar Macedonia, this focus
occludes the practices Greece itself used to enlarge the countrys borders and make
it overwhelmingly Greek. Along with campaigns of territorial expansion came
repeated efforts at shifting the ethnography of newly acquired lands to help provide
evidence of their Greek character. What is to stop the new Macedonian state from
engaging in similar practices to expand its territorial reach, particularly if a
Macedonian minority is recognized in Greek Macedonia?
Assessing the Macedonian Threat: Post-Cold War Politics in Macedonia
Greek fears of Macedonian irredentism suggests virulent Macedonian
nationalism as Yugoslavia broke up, and a sizeable and threatened Greek minority
in the emerging Macedonian state. While the incipient country certainly exhibited
signs of divisive nationalism, it was far less pronounced than in areas more directly
affected by the Greater Serbia (and Greater Croatia) projects (though Miloevi
suggested in 1992 that Macedonia be divided between Serbia and Greece). The
new states constitution, however, did reference protections for Macedonians living
abroad that were amended (as was its national flag). Multiethnic Macedonia
witnessed little in the way of ethnic unmixing in the 1990s and was the singular
republic to leave Yugoslavia peacefully, at least until Montenegros exit from
Serbia and Montenegro. Earlier rivalry over the larger geographic area of
Macedonia in conditions of a disintegrating Yugoslav state signals that a
FYROM might well have witnessed the mass expulsions of Croatia and BiH.
94

Latter idea noted in Roudometof, op.cit., 253

Monova 2010, op.cit., 256
96
Mackridge and Yannakakis, op.cit., 11
97
Monova 2010, op.cit., 263-264. Yet, Macedonians from Vardar Macedonia may travel to Greece even with the
original birthplace written in Macedonian.
95

17

Several factors explain why Macedonian nation-builders did not seek to

remove the countrys relatively large Albanian population or any other of the less
numerous minorities as well as why Serb nationalists did not officially include
Macedonia in the Greater Serbia project. These include: 1) the nature of
Macedonian national identity and nationalism less developed compared to its
neighbors,98 but also distinct from Serb identity due to a shift from interwar times
when the official Serb (and then Yugoslav) position characterized Macedonians as
South Serbs,99 2) the central governments maintaining of control over the means
of violence in the 1990s,100 3) the desire of Macedonian political leaders,
particularly inaugural President Gligorov, to avoid conflict and lead the new state
to be portrayed as a pluralist democracy101 and relatedly 4) a willingness among
politicians and a divided society to accept extensive Western involvement with a
view towards ensuring the states (and their own) survival.102
A serious Greater Albania campaign was also absent. The Albanian
government showed comparable restraint in this regard, while Macedonias
Albanians and their leaders demonstrated weak interest with the notion of joining
an even more economically challenged Albania.103 Ethnographic conditions
nevertheless continue to appear opportune for a Greater Albania initiative given
several factors: Albanian concentrations in western and northwestern Macedonia
close to Albania and Kosovo, the fact that Macedonia shares lengthy borders with
both entities, and possesses the next most numerous Albanian population. As
Macedonia came to the brink of civil war with Albanian insurgents launching
attacks on police and army posts in 2001, leaders in Albania voiced more interest
in promoting equal rights for Macedonias Albanians than for territorial
expansion.104 More preoccupied with Serbs in Croatia and BiH, Belgrade was
likewise less focused on including the Macedonians in the Greater Serbia project
a likely result of the shifting understanding of Macedonian identity in Serbia and
98

Kaufman, Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 193.
Danforth, op. cit., 65
100
Kyril Drezov, Collateral Damage: The Impact on Macedonia of the Kosovo War, in Michael Waller, Kyril
Drezov and Blent Gkay (eds), Kosovo: The Politics of Delusion, Frank Cass, London and Portland, OR, 2001:
60.
101
Heather Rae, State Identities and the Homogenization of Peoples, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002:
295
102
Mieczysaw Boduszyski, Regime Change in the Yugoslav Successor States: Divergent Paths Toward a New
Europe, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2010: 141
103
Ibid., 158, Rae 2002: 273. There is also a historical basis for the absence of a serious campaign as Albania was
not one of the three major competitors for Macedonia.
104
Heather Rae, op.cit., 272-273. About two years earlier came the NATO bombings of Serbia and divergent
loyalties among Macedonians (sympathetic towards Serbia) and Albanians (towards Kosovo), another factor further
magnifying already-existing differences. There is also the 1992 citizenship law requiring fifteen years continuous
residence in Macedonia needed to acquire citizenship, legislation leaving many Kosovar Albanians settled in
Macedonia to not be counted in the 1991 and 1994 censuses.
99

18

the resulting tendency to see Macedonians as distinct. There was also the
challenge of bringing yet another area into an enlarged Serbia, one with serious
economic difficulties.
Featuring a much less developed national identity, Macedonians did not
display overwhelming interest and enthusiasm for independence, while only a
miniscule number officially declare Greek nationality.105 A September 1991
referendum on independence nevertheless had the support of the Macedonian
population and allowed participation from the diaspora, though most Albanians did
not cast a ballot. Albanians in FYROM subsequently held their own referendum in
January 1992 and voted for political and territorial autonomy and the establishment
of their own state: the Republic of Ilirida. Their actions were a reflection of the
inequality in most, if not all, areas of life and the understanding of discrimination
as its ultimate cause in already poor and deteriorating economic conditions. The
Albanian boycott of the referendum, along with the flying of the Albanian flag in
majority-Albanian areas and clear support for the Albanian team in international
soccer matches, signaled that over 20 per cent of the population did not accept the
new state and the accompanying Macedonian nation-building project.106 Though
ethnic cleansing did not occur in the post-1989 period, ethnic separation was
already a reality and had been for some time.
The new constitution defined Macedonia as the national state of the
Macedonian nation, while simultaneously granting equal rights to all groups.
Article 49 also states: the Republic cares for the status and rights of those persons
belonging to the Macedonian people in neighboring countries as well as
Macedonian expatriates, assists in their cultural development, and promotes links
with them.107 While it bears similarity to Article 108 of the Greek constitution,
the Greek view drew a link between the Macedonian people in neighboring
105

Noteworthy is the 1994 census occurring at a time of intense domestic and foreign pressure the first postYugoslav count and funded by the Council of Europe and the EU. Like many occurring in previous times, the
census was a highly political matter given that ethnic identity, language rights, citizenship and the intermingled
concepts of religion, language, and nationality were matters of hot dispute. The previous April 1991 census was,
in fact, boycotted by the majority of Macedonias Albanians given the belief that they would be intentionally
undercounted. At the same time, Albanian politicians pursued a media campaign beyond the countrys borders
claiming not only an erroneous count, but that Albanians made up 40 per cent of the population and also had
Greeces support. The public relations campaign reaped dividends not only in the organization of an IC-supervised
census, but legitimized Albanians claims for special treatment, ultimately feeding into a drive to acquire special
(non-minority) status based on numerical strength. The resulting figures listed Macedonians at 66.5 per cent and
Albanians at 22.9 per cent. 1991 census figures showed Macedonians at 65 per cent and Albanians at 21 per cent
[Victor A. Friedman, Observing the Observers: Language, Ethnicity, and Power in the 1994 Macedonian Census
and Beyond, in Barnett R. Rubin (ed), Toward Comprehensive Peace in Southeast Europe: Conflict Prevention in
the South Balkans, The Twentieth Century Fund Press, New York 1996: 83-84, 90-92].
106
Mieczysaw Boduszyski, Regime Change in the Yugoslav Successor States: Divergent Paths Toward a New
Europe, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2010: 146-147
107
Roudometof, op.cit., 258

19

countries to imply the Macedonian minority concentrated in northern Greece.108

The Greek governments objections, while not part of a coherent and clear policy
towards the new state,109 focused concern over Macedonian irredentism. The
Greek Cabinet in 1991 rejected recognition on the basis of: 1) the countrys name
and the implied territorial claims, 2) the requirement that Macedonia publicly
reject any notion of such claims, and 3) acknowledgement that Greece does not
have a Macedonian minority. While the name dispute continues, the views of
outspoken Greek Foreign Minister Antonis Samaras helping to formulate these
criteria were not shared by all high-level politicians.110 Nevertheless, Greeces
three criteria for recognizing the new state became part of the outcome of the midDecember 1991 EU meeting of Foreign Ministers leading to the recognition of
Slovenia and Croatia, even while Macedonias exclusion from the initial round of
recognition came from a deal between the German and Greek Foreign Ministers
Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Samaras respectively.111 The EU soon adopted the
Greek position on the name issue, refusing to recognize the republic if
Macedonia was included in its official title.112 At the same time, the Macedonian
parliament adopted amendments in January 1992 stating that the borders of the
new republic could be changed only in accordance with international norms, that it
would refrain from interference in the matters of other states, and the absence of
territorial claims against its neighbors.113
Even more pressing were domestic inter-ethnic tensions. FYROM saw a
high degree of international involvement early on in the 1990s, though little
indication of potential membership in NATO and the EU. At the request of
President Gligorov, a United Nations Preventative Deployment Force
(UNPREDEP) arrived in 1992, later reorganizing into three separate commands
that also included political and humanitarian-development affairs. Even with much
increased international involvement, domestic Macedonian-Albanian relations
remained tense, further challenged with the large inflow of refugees from the
conflict in Kosovo. There were also Macedonian anxieties over the prospect of a
Greater Albania campaign in spite of signs in contradiction: minimal interest
among the minority to join up with an even more economically-challenged

108

Ibid., 258
Zahariadis, op.cit., 309
110
Ibid., 309-310
111
Thanos Veremis, The Revival of the Macedonian Question, 1991-1995, in Peter Mackridge and Eleni
Yannakakis (eds), Ourselves and Others: The Development of a Greek Macedonian Cultural Identity Since 1912,
Berg Publishers, Oxford and New York 1997: 228
112
Roudometof, op.cit., 261
113
Ibid., 258
109

20

Albania, the Albanian governments rejection of the idea, and the patent
disapproval of the international community.114
Macedonias postsocialist political scene remains deeply divided along
Macedonian-Albanian lines with both publics increasingly viewing successive
governments and their intense collaboration with the IC as illegitimate. On the
surface, it can be said that the country operated as a democracy with elections held
at regular intervals (albeit in rather chaotic conditions and with questionable
practices) as well as a parliamentary system of government. Yet, the former
communist-dominated ruling parties hardly governed in the publics interest, with
the Socijaldemokratski Sojuz Makedonije (Social Democratic Union of Macedonia
or SDSM) enjoying minimal checks on its power. The primary Macedonian
(ultra)nationalist party remains the Vnatrena Makedonska Revolucionerna
Organizacija Demokratska Partija za Makedonsko Nacionalno Edinstvo
(Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization Democratic Party for
Macedonian National Unity or VMRO-DPMNE or often simply abbreviated
VMRO). Led by nationalist writer Ljupo Georgievski, the VMRO also had an
irredentist platform calling for a United Macedonia and has held power for much
of the time since 1998. At the same time, the party turned away from exclusivist
nationalism in the mid-1990s, likely to assuage the international community.
Though the VMRO won the most seats in the 1990 elections, it lacked the
support to form a government. Led by Skopje University professor Nikola
Kljusev, the resulting 1991-92 government of experts featured Macedonian and
Albanian nationalists as well as reform communists and formed at a time of ethnic
tensions and marked economic decline. The assembly had chosen former
communist Kiro Gligorov for the mostly ceremonial position of president, though
winning only by a slight margin over the VMROs Georgievski. With the support
extending well beyond Macedonians, Gligorov was in a good position to rule and
made repeated declarations rejecting the notion of the government making
territorial claims on neighboring states.115 The new president was also able to
negotiate a conflict-free exit of federal troops and materiel given a good working
relationship between the Macedonian and Serb JNA commanders.
While the new government navigated the initial transition successfully, it
collapsed in July 1992 when leaders of the major parties in the national assembly
sought an expressly political approach to government,116 while also being blamed
for the ongoing economic problems and inability to gain recognition for
Macedonia.117 The resulting government featured a coalition of four parties led by
114

Boduszyski, op.cit., 158

Ibid., 146, 151
116
Rossos 2008, op.cit., 273
117
Rae, op. cit., 287
115

21

the SDSM (without the VMRO even though it again won the most votes) and
worked closely with the EU, the United States, President Gligorov and Albanian
leaders to resolve disagreements without restoring to conflict.118 The VMRO
remained the primary opposition party until the late 1990s and continued to stress
its nationalist vision, one that had clear irredentist tones in its support for the right
of return for Macedonians expelled from northern Greece. The partys radicalism
featured constant criticism of the government for its close ties with the West and
compromise with the Albanians. While the SDSM prevailed again in the 1994
elections, corruption scandals and perceptions of mounting arrogance among
SDSM politicians helped the VMRO win the most votes in the 1998 parliamentary
elections, with the newly formed and extreme nationalist Demokratska Partija na
Albancite (Democratic Party of Albanians or DPA) also taking a position in the
coalition, thus featuring both extreme Macedonian and Albanian nationalists.119
Gligorov remained as president until 1999 before being replaced by the VMROs
Boris Trajkovski who also advanced support for greater minority rights, part of the
partys effort to tone down nationalist rhetoric in the mid-1990s.
The VMRO-led government allowed NATO forces into the country in late
1998, numbers that increased to 10,000 by mid-March in response to the crisis in
Kosovo and the estimated 350,000 refugees. While critical of the governments
handling of a tense situation, international actors such as NATO and the UNHCR
were criticized domestically for their lack of haste in ministering to the needs of a
refugee population well beyond the predicted 100,000, and helped increase
negative views towards NATO as well as the EU even while most Kosovars
returned home by September 1999.120 There also continued to be misgivings over
the UN peacekeeping force. While helping to stabilize the country from 1993-99
in conjunction with U.S. ground troops, the Macedonian political parties were
divided in their support with the ruling SDSM approving of its presence, the
VMRO opposed, and with public opinion expressing ambivalence.121 Ambiguity
and contradictory messages in regard to FYROMs chance for joining Western
organizations only added to equivocal and mistrustful attitudes towards the West,
with pro-Western attitudes driven more from perceptions of weakness than genuine
interest in liberal reform.122 The VMROs victory in the 1998 election was also
met with concern, and resulted in the conclusion of the UNPREDEP mission.
For Greece, the VMROs inclusion in the government could provide
evidence of Macedonias irredentism. The partys rhetoric had been virulently
118

Boduszyski, op.cit., 147

Boduszyski 2010, 149
120
Rae, op.cit., 288-289
121
Boduszyski, op.cit., 165
122
Ibid., 161
119

22

nationalist with a stated goal of bringing all Macedonians and Macedonia itself
into one state, as well as the return of formally confiscated property of
Macedonians who fled or left neighboring states.123 And like the Greek
government, the VMRO constructed multiculturalism involving minorities linked
culturally to neighboring states as a threat to the countrys unity.
After 2000, the Wests policies toward FYROM shifted toward democracy
promotion over and above conflict prevention as for Croatia and the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY).124 After gaining admittance to the Council of
Europe, becoming a party to the Balkan Stability Pact and joining NATOs
Partnership for Peace program, FYROM became the first Balkan state to sign a
Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU in April 2001. Yet,
the country witnessed deteriorating inter-ethnic relations and the Albanian National
Liberation Army launched an armed rebellion against the government in the spring
of 2001. The subsequent agreement reached at Ohrid the following August had the
Macedonian government committing to much enhanced cultural and political rights
for the Albanians, with the rebels allowed amnesty on condition of forfeiting their
arms. Given the sense among the Macedonian majority that the VMRO
government did not act in their interests at Ohrid, its popularity however rapidly
declined.125 An SDSM-led political grouping prevailed in the 2002 parliamentary
elections and formed a coalition with the most vote-winning Albanian parties,
while SDSM leader Branko Crvenkovski was elected to replace President
Trajkovski who passed away in 2004. FYROM was also able to sign an SAA and
submit its application for EU membership in 2004. The VMRO returned to power
four years later in 2006, with VMRO candidate Gjorgje Ivanov later winning the
2009 presidential elections. While due to be held in 2010, early parliamentary
elections were called in 2008, after Greece vetoed FYROMs bid to NATO in
response to the ongoing dispute over the countrys name. A VMRO-led coalition
led the vote, thus continuing to keep the countrys major nationalist party in power.
Prime minister Nikola Gruevski (VMRO) has also recently secured his third
consecutive term since coming to office in 2006, pursuing a program of
reconstructing ancient Macedonia through an expensive program of urban
renewal in Skopje, the renaming of roads and sports arenas, among other projects.
Despite the partys continuing success as well as skepticism in previous EU
Progress Reports over the countrys ability to implement the SAA, the European
Commission nevertheless recommended the commencement of accession

123

Ibid., 153
Boduszyski 2010, 211
125
Ibid., 134
124

23

negotiations for Macedonia in October 2009.126 Yet, the process continues to stall
given the ongoing name dispute with Greece, leading the Greek government to
block the possibility of opening talks. Macedonia experienced renewed political
instability when the opposition left parliament in December 2012 and threatened to
boycott local elections. While EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fle helped
resolve the crisis in March, interethnic relations have deteriorated with little sign of
the name dispute to be resolved in the near future.
Conclusion
To be sure, divided Macedonia had its share of challenges after declaring
independence in 1991. Yet, this small country of about two million escaped ethnic
cleansing. Curiously, the newly independent Macedonian state has faced fewer
challenges in its relations with Albania even though the countrys sizeable
Albanian minority outsizes those identifying as non-Greek Macedonians in Greece.
Put in another way, Greece demonstrates far more concern over a Greater
Macedonia than FYROM over a Greater Albania when numbers of the kin
(national minority) suggest these fears should be reversed. Macedonian President
Gligorov welcomed the international community to stabilize divisive AlbanianMacedonian relations and lay the groundwork for reform. Since 1991, the political
fortunes of FYROMs preeminent nationalist party the VMRO have
consolidated, leaving the party today in control of the government and Presidency.
Though the party is hardly immune to public frustration over corruption and
collaboration with the international community, it has nevertheless become a major
force in FYROMs politics and institutions. With its talk of irredentist aims
towards Greece, the partys appearance of success can only be used by Greek
governments to indicate signs of designs on Greek Macedonia.
While memory of Yugoslav nationality policy and northern neighbors
designs on Aegean Macedonia is important in understanding these concerns, this
paper has focused on longer-term trends in Greek territorial expansion, including
the construction of a pure Greek state, to explain post-Cold War Greek fears
toward FYROM. What is to stop Macedonian nationalists from using similar
tactics to expand the new state particularly towards Greeces northern
Macedonian region? In such circumstances, it is difficult to imagine a now
emboldened Greece, particularly in its relations with the EU, to allow free
126

Even with considerable EU involvement, Macedonia made only minimal advances in the area of human and
minority rights (Maria Koinova, Challenging Assumptions of the Enlargement Literature: The Impact of the EU on
Human and Minority Rights in Macedonia, Europe-Asia Studies, v.63, n.5, spring 2011, 808).

24

movement along the Greek-Macedonian border, potentially allowing the return of

the many who fled or were expelled in the 1940s unwilling to officially define
themselves as Greeks. With Greece already a member, the EU has little power to
press for the return of properties to Macedonians who fled after the civil war.
There is also those Slavic-speakers aligned with Macedonian identity living in
Greek Macedonia with a human rights movement organizing for the use of the
language in the public domain, among other things. With Greek political parties
aligned on the notion of Macedonian identity as a threat, a borderless Europe
cannot help but complicate existing relations more so than over prospects for a
Greater Albania were Albania and Kosovo to also join.

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