The region of Macedonia is known to have been inhabited since Paleolithic times.
182-757: The earliest historical inhabitants of the region were the Pelasgians , the Bryges and the Thracians . The Pelasgians occupied Emathia and the Bryges occupied northern Epirus , as well as Macedonia , mainly west of the Axios River and parts of Mygdonia . Thracians, in early times occupied mainly the eastern parts of Macedonia, ( Mygdonia , Crestonia , Bisaltia ). The Ancient Macedonians are missing from early historical accounts because they had been living in
364-524: A sibling language to Ancient Greek or a Doric Greek dialect, although the prestige language of the region was at first Attic and then Koine Greek . Their religious beliefs mirrored those of other Greeks , following the main deities of the Greek pantheon , although the Macedonians continued Archaic burial practices that had ceased in other parts of Greece after the 6th century BC. Aside from
546-526: A "dark race" ( melanthes ... genos ). Pelasgus admits that the land was once called Apia but compares them to the women of Libya and Egypt and wants to know how they can be from Argos on which they cite descent from Io . According to Strabo, Aeschylus' Suppliants defines the original homeland of the Pelasgians as the region around Mycenae . Sophocles and Euripides affirm the Greek origins of
728-564: A Persian nobleman named Sisines , by receiving them for several years as exiles at the Macedonian court. This gave him a good knowledge of Persian issues, and may even have influenced some of his innovations in the management of the Macedonian state. Alexander was also acquainted with these Persian exiles during his youth. In 336 BC, Philip II sent Parmenion , with Amyntas , Andromenes and Attalus , and an army of 10,000 men into Asia Minor to make preparations for an invasion to free
910-498: A battle in which some 7,000 Illyrians died (357 BC). By this move, Philip established his authority inland as far as Lake Ohrid and earned the favour of the Epirotes . After securing the western and southern borders of Macedon, Philip went on to besiege Amphipolis in 357 BC. The Athenians had been unable to conquer Amphipolis, which commanded the gold mines of Mount Pangaion , so Philip reached an agreement with Athens to lease
1092-652: A century for the Bulgarian idea to regain ascendancy in the region. The Bulgarian advance in Macedonia in the 19th century was aided by the numerical superiority of the Bulgarians after the decrease in the Turkish population, as well as by their improved economic status. The Bulgarians of Macedonia took active part in the struggle for independent Bulgarian Patriarchate and Bulgarian schools. The representatives of
1274-564: A five-month stay in Macedonia shortly after the suppression of the Ilinden Uprising and represents an ethnographic report. Brailford defines the dialect of Macedonia as neither Serbian, nor Bulgarian, yet closer to the second one. An opinion is delivered that any Slavic nation could "win" Macedonia if it is to use the needed tact and resources, yet it is claimed that the Bulgarians have already done that. Brailsford uses synonymously
1456-518: A fragment known from Strabo , calls Dodona, identified by reference to "the oak ", the "seat of Pelasgians", thus explaining why Homer, in referring to Zeus as he ruled over Dodona, did not style him " Dodonic " but Pelasgic Zeus. He mentions also that Pelasgus (Greek: Πελασγός, the eponymous ancestor of the Pelasgians) was the father of King Lycaon of Arcadia . Asius of Samos ( Ancient Greek : Ἄσιος ὁ Σάμιος ) describes Pelasgus as
1638-486: A hole matching the penetrating wound and lameness suffered by Philip, the authors of the study identified the remains of Tomb I in Vergina as those of Philip II. Tomb II instead was identified in the study as that of King Arrhidaeus and his wife Eurydice II . The Greek Ministry of Culture replied that this claim was baseless, and that the archaeological evidence shows that the ankylotic knee belongs to another body which
1820-426: A nest, with twice four birds—and those the serpent seized together with the mother-bird as she was fluttering round her loss. And every bird the serpent buried in his greedy maw. All stood amazed: but Calchas, who perceived the truth, exclaimed, "Rejoice Pelasgian men, for we shall conquer; Troy will fall; although the toil of war must long continue—so the nine birds equal nine long years of war." And while he prophesied,
2002-688: A new province of the Byzantine Empire – Macedonia , was organised by Empress Irene out of the Theme of Thrace. It had no relation with the historical or geographical region of Macedonia, but instead it was centered in Thrace , including the area from Adrianople (the theme's capital) and the Evros valley eastward along the Sea of Marmara . It did not include any part of ancient Macedon , which (insofar as
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#17327648069202184-508: A propaganda campaign was launched at home and abroad to prove the Serbian character of the region. A great contribution to the Serbian cause was made by an astronomer and historian from Trieste , Spiridon Gopčević (also known as Leo Brenner). Gopčević published in 1889 the ethnographic research Macedonia and Old Serbia , which defined more than three-quarters of the Macedonian population as Serbian. The population of Kosovo and northern Albania
2366-483: A public dinner and then raping him. When Pausanias complained to Philip, the king felt unable to chastise Attalus, as he was about to send him to Asia with Parmenion to establish a bridgehead for an invasion he was planning. Also, Philip had recently married Attalus' niece, Cleopatra Eurydice . Rather than offend Attalus, Philip tried to mollify Pausanias by elevating him within his personal bodyguard. Pausanias then seems to have redirected his desire for revenge towards
2548-584: A sanctuary of Demeter at Therae, as well as expelling the Minyans and Lacedaemonians from Lemnos. Strabo dedicates a section of his Geography to the Pelasgians, relating both his own opinions and those of prior writers. He begins by stating: Almost every one is agreed that the Pelasgi were an ancient race spread throughout the whole of Greece, but especially in the country of the Æolians near to Thessaly. He defines Pelasgian Argos as being "between
2730-621: A separate Macedonian nation and Macedonian language . The ideas of Misirkov, Pulevski and other Macedonians would remain largely unnoticed until World War II when they were adopted by the Macedonian Partisans movement which in 1944 set up the Anti-fascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia and proclaimed a Macedonian nation-state of ethnic Macedonians . They made Macedonian
2912-586: A separate "Macedonian language" was also advocated as a means of unification of the Ethnic Macedonians with Serbian, Bulgarian and Greek consciousness. On Macedonian Matters was written in the South Slavic dialect spoken in central Macedonia ( Veles - Prilep - Bitola - Ohrid ). This dialect was proposed by Misirkov as the basis for the future language, and, as Misirkov says, a dialect which is most different from all other neighboring languages (as
3094-714: A separate ethnic group, and Romanians view such nations as subgroups of a wider Romanian ethnicity. Some Aromanians do identify as part of the Romanian nation however. Currently, among anti-Romanian groups of Aromanians, particularly in Greece, these acts are referred to as "the Romanian propaganda". Independent sources in Europe between 1878 and 1918 generally tended to view the Slavic population of Macedonia in two ways: as Bulgarians and as Macedonian Slavs. German scholar Gustav Weigand
3276-667: Is most likely to be the plain of Thessaly , and to "Pelasgic Zeus ", living in and ruling over Dodona . Additionally, according to the Iliad , Pelasgians were camping out on the shore together with the following tribes: Towards the sea lie the Carians and the Paeonians , with curved bows, and the Leleges and Caucones , and the goodly Pelasgi. In the Odyssey , they appear among
3458-448: Is open, even though translators typically make a decision, but Tyrsenians may well be the ethnonym Tyrrhenoi . Euripides uses the term for the inhabitants of Argos in his Orestes and The Phoenician Women . In a lost play entitled Archelaus , he says that Danaus , on coming to reside in the city of Inachus (Argos), formulated a law whereby the Pelasgians were now to be called Danaans . The Roman poet Ovid describes
3640-458: Is that of Aristotle , who states simply that Philip was killed because Pausanias had been offended by Attalus (Philip's uncle-in-law) and his friends. Attalus was the uncle of Philip's wife Cleopatra (renamed Eurydice upon marriage). Fifty years later, the historian Cleitarchus expanded and embellished the story. Centuries afterwards, this version was propagated by Diodorus Siculus and other historians who relied on Cleitarchus. According to
3822-566: The 5th century BC was inhabited by those speakers of ancient Greek who were identified as Ionians and Aeolians . Much like all other aspects of the "Pelasgians", their ethnonym ( Pelasgoi ) is of extremely uncertain provenance and etymology . Michael Sakellariou collects fifteen different etymologies proposed for it by philologists and linguists during the last 200 years, though he admits that "most [...] are fanciful". An ancient etymology based on mere similarity of sounds linked pelasgos to pelargos (" stork ") and postulates that
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#17327648069204004-452: The Aegean . Populations identified as "Pelasgian" spoke a language or languages that at the time Greeks identified as " barbarian ", though some ancient writers nonetheless described the Pelasgians as Greeks. A tradition also survived that large parts of Greece had once been Pelasgian before being Hellenized . These parts fell largely, though far from exclusively, within the territory which by
4186-642: The Battle of Maritsa in 1371 most of the Serbian lords of Macedonia acknowledged Ottoman suzerainty. After the conquest of Skopje by the Ottoman Turks in 1392, most of Macedonia formally became incorporated into the Ottoman Empire . The initial period of Ottoman rule led a depopulation of the plains and river valleys of Macedonia. The Christian population there fled to the mountains. Ottomans were largely brought from Asia Minor and settled parts of
4368-677: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1913 to inquire into causes and conduct of the Balkan Wars also talked about the Slavs of Macedonia as about Bulgarians in its report published in 1914. The commission had eight members from Great Britain, France, Austria-Hungary , Germany, Russia and the United States. The term "Macedonian Slavs" was used by scholars and publicists in three general meanings: An instance of
4550-605: The Constantinople Conference , held in the period December 1876 - January 1877 - with the participation of the Ottoman Empire and the 6 European Great Powers , it was decided to create 2 autonomous Bulgarian vilayets - Eastern and Western - in the European territories of the Ottoman Empire, and in the second one with the capital Sofia included the largest part of the region of Macedonia, despite
4732-870: The Greek War of Independence (1821–1829) which received the active support of the Greek Macedonian population as part of their struggle for the resurrection of Greek statehood. According to the Istituto Geografiko de Agostini of Rome, in 1903 in the vilayets of Selanik and Monastir Greek was the dominant language of instruction in the region: Most of the population of Macedonia was described as Bulgarians during 16th and 17th centuries by Ottoman historians and travellers such as Hoca Sadeddin Efendi , Mustafa Selaniki , Hadji Khalfa and Evliya Çelebi . The name meant, however, rather little in view of
4914-525: The Greek city-states of Athens and Thebes at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, Philip II led the effort to establish a federation of Greek states known as the League of Corinth , with him as the elected hegemon and commander-in-chief of Greece for a planned invasion of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia . However, his assassination by a royal bodyguard, Pausanias of Orestis , led to
5096-671: The Greeks , or to all the inhabitants of Greece before the emergence of the Greeks . In general, "Pelasgian" has come to mean more broadly all the indigenous inhabitants of the Aegean Sea region and their cultures, and British historian Peter Green comments on it as "a hold-all term for any ancient, primitive and presumably indigenous people in the Greek world". In the Classic period, enclaves under that name survived in several locations of mainland Greece, Crete , and other regions of
5278-513: The Hellespontine cities and the Thracians of Southeastern Europe (i.e., on the Hellespontine border of Thrace ). Homer calls their town or district "Larisa" and characterises it as fertile, and its inhabitants as celebrated for their spearsmanship. He records their chiefs as Hippothous and Pylaeus , sons of Lethus, son of Teutamides . The Iliad also refers to the camp at Greece , specifically at " Argos Pelasgikon ", which
5460-565: The Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising in 1903 signified a second weakening of the Bulgarian cause resulting in closure of schools and a new wave of emigration to Bulgaria. IMRO was also weakened and the number of Serbian and Greek guerilla groups in Macedonia substantially increased. The Exarchate lost the dioceses of Skopje and Debar to the Serbian Patriarchate in 1902 and 1910, respectively. Despite this,
5642-739: The Illyrians , a struggle in which King Perdiccas himself had died. The Paeonians and the Thracians had sacked and invaded the eastern regions of Macedonia, while the Athenians had landed at Methoni on the coast with a contingent under the Macedonian pretender Argaeus II . Philip pushed back the Paeonians and Thracians promising tributes, and defeated the 3,000 Athenian hoplites (359 BC). Momentarily free from his opponents, he concentrated on strengthening his internal position and, above all, his army. Philip II made many notable contributions to
Demographic history of Macedonia - Misplaced Pages Continue
5824-427: The Illyrians . Before leaving, Perdiccas had appointed Philip as regent for his infant son Amyntas IV , but Philip succeeded in taking the kingdom for himself. Philip's military skills and expansionist vision of Macedonia brought him early success. He first had to remedy the woes over Macedonian territory faced by his throne's government. This was a predicament that had greatly worsened through Macedonia's defeat by
6006-606: The Macedonian phalanx , an infantry formation that consisted of soldiers all armed with a sarissa . Philip is credited for adding the sarissa to the Macedonian army, where it soon was the common weapon used by most soldiers. Philip had married Audata , daughter or granddaughter of the Illyrian king Bardylis . However, this marriage did not prevent him from marching against the Illyrians in 358 BC and defeating them in
6188-729: The Makednoi ( Greek : Mακεδνοί ) were a Dorian tribe that stayed behind during the great southward migration of the Dorian Greeks . The word "Makednos" is cognate with the Doric Greek word "Μάκος" Μakos ( Attic form Μήκος – "mékos"), which is Greek for "length". The ancient Macedonians took this name either because they were physically tall, or because they settled in the mountains. The latter definition would translate "Macedonian" as "Highlander". The Macedonians ( Greek : Μακεδόνες , Makedónes ) were an ancient tribe that lived on
6370-888: The Peloponnese , settling in isolated regions that the Byzantines called Sclavinias , until they were gradually pacified. Many Slavs came to serve as soldiers in Byzantine armies and settled in other parts of the Byzantine Empire. Slavic settlers assimilated many among the Romanised and Hellenised Paeonian, Illyrian and Thracian population of Macedonia, but pockets of tribes that fled to the mountains remained independent. A number of scholars today consider that present-day Aromanians (Vlachs), Sarakatsani and Albanians originate from these mountainous populations. The interaction between Romanised and non-Romanised indigenous peoples and
6552-592: The Sea People in Egyptian records. Literary analysis has been ongoing since classical Greece , when the writers of those times read previous works on the subject. No definitive answers were ever forthcoming by this method; it rather served to better define the problems. The method perhaps reached a peak in the Victorian era when new methods of systematic comparison began to be applied in philology . Typical of
6734-700: The Thracian coast (354–353 BC). Philip's involvement in the Third Sacred War (356–346 BC) began in 354 BC. At the request of the Thessalian League , Philip and his army traveled to Thessaly in order to capture Pagasae , resulting in an alliance with Thebes. A year later in 353 BC, Philip was once again asked to assist in battle, but this time against the tyrant Lycophron who was supported by Onomarchus . Philip and his forces invaded Thessaly, defeating 7,000 Phocians and forcing Phayllus,
6916-580: The Tiber River in Italy at Pyrgi and a few other settlements under a king, Maleos. Philip II of Macedon Philip II of Macedon ( ‹See Tfd› Greek : Φίλιππος Philippos ; 382 BC – October 336 BC) was the king ( basileus ) of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia from 359 BC until his death in 336 BC. He was a member of the Argead dynasty , founders of the ancient kingdom, and
7098-466: The alluvial plain around the rivers Haliacmon and lower Axios in the northeastern part of mainland Greece . Essentially an ancient Greek people , they gradually expanded from their homeland along the Haliacmon valley on the northern edge of the Greek world, absorbing or driving out neighbouring non-Greek tribes, primarily Thracian and Illyrian . They spoke Ancient Macedonian , which was either
7280-487: The greaves , one of which was shaped consistently to fit a leg with a misaligned tibia (Philip II was recorded as having broken his tibia). Also, the remains of the skull show damage to the right eye caused by the penetration of an object (historically recorded to be an arrow). Two scientists who studied some of the bones claimed in 2015 that Philip was buried in Tomb I, not Tomb II. On the basis of age, knee ankylosis , and
7462-621: The "Autonomists" in IMRO who defended a Macedonian position are largely ungrounded. IMRO regarded itself – and was regarded by the Ottoman authorities, the Greek guerilla groups, the contemporary press in Europe and even by Misirkov -as an exclusively Bulgarian organization. Attempts at Romanian influence among the Aromanians and Megleno-Romanians of Macedonia began in the early 19th century and were based mainly on linguistic criteria, as well as
Demographic history of Macedonia - Misplaced Pages Continue
7644-729: The "Macedonia" newspaper in Constantinople . In this article Petko Slaveykov writes: "We have many times heard from the Macedonists that they are not Bulgarians, but they are rather Macedonians, descendants of the Ancient Macedonians". In a letter written to the Bulgarian Exarch in February 1874 Petko Slaveykov reports that discontentment with the current situation "has given birth among local patriots to
7826-749: The 12th centuries, the first historical mention occurs of two ethnic groups just off the borders of Macedonia: the Arvanites in modern Albania and the Vlachs (Aromanians) in Thessaly and Pindus. Modern historians are divided as to whether the Albanians came to the area then (from Dacia or Moesia) or originated from the native non-Romanized Thracian or Illyrian populations. Also in the 11th century Byzantium settled several tens of thousands of Turkic Christians from Asia Minor , referred to as Vardariotes , along
8008-416: The 15th and the 16th century, too. (See also: Roma in the Republic of Macedonia ) In the 13th and the 14th centuries the Byzantine Empire, the Despotate of Epirus , the rulers of Thessaly , and the Bulgarian Empire contested for control of the region of Macedonia, but the frequent shift of borders did not result in any major population changes. In 1338 the Serbian Empire conquered the area, but after
8190-409: The 1850s and 1860s. Afterward, in 1876 the Bulgarians revolted in the April uprising . The emergence of Bulgarian national sentiments was closely related to the re-establishment of the independent Bulgarian church. This rise of national awareness became known as the Bulgarian National Revival . However, the uprising was crushed by the Ottomans. As a result, on the Constantinople Conference in 1876
8372-400: The 1870s the Bulgarians were clearly the dominant national party in Macedonia. It was widely anticipated that the Macedonian Slavs would continue to evolve as an integral part of the Bulgarian nation, and that, in the event of the Ottoman Empire's demise, Macedonia would be included in a Bulgarian successor-state. That these anticipations proved false was due not to any intrinsic peculiarities of
8554-431: The 18th century, when dissimilation efforts were encouraged by the Greek missionary Cosmas of Aetolia (1714–1779) who taught that Aromanians should speak Greek because as he said "it's the language of our Church" and established over 100 Greek schools in northern and western Greece. The offensive of the clergy against the use of Aromanian was by no means limited to religious issues but was a tool devised in order to convince
8736-405: The 1913–14 period, Čupovski published the newspaper Makedonski Golos' (Македонскi Голосъ) (meaning Macedonian voice ) in which he and fellow members of the Petersburg Macedonian Colony propagandized the existence of a separate Macedonian people different from Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbs, and were struggling for popularizing the idea for an independent Macedonian state. During the 1920s and 30s
8918-488: The 19th century on account of the incessant wars led by the Ottoman Empire, the low birth rate and the higher death toll of the frequent plague epidemics among Muslims than among Christians. The Ottoman–Habsburg War (1683–1699), the subsequent flight of a substantial part of the Serbian population in Kosovo to Austria and the reprisals and looting during the Ottoman counteroffensive led to an influx of Albanian Muslims into Kosovo, northern and northwestern Macedonia. Being in
9100-471: The 19th century, when it became most influential among all generations of Bulgarian enlighteners and revolutionaries and shaped the idea for a modern Bulgarian national symbol. In his testament, he explicitly noted that his relatives were "of Bulgarian nationality" and from Dojran . Although the first literary work in Modern Bulgarian, History of Slav-Bulgarians was written by a Macedonia born Bulgarian monk, Paisius of Hilendar as early as 1762, it took almost
9282-415: The 20th century there were 785 Bulgarian schools in Macedonia with 1,250 teachers and 39,892 pupils. The Bulgarian Exarchate held jurisdiction over seven dioceses (Skopje, Debar , Ohrid , Bitola , Nevrokop , Veles and Strumica ), i.e., the whole of Vardar and Pirin Macedonia and some of southern Macedonia. The Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committee (BMARC), which was founded in 1893 as
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#17327648069209464-439: The 6th century AD there were two provinces carrying the name "Macedonia" in the Empire's borders: Macedonia was ravaged several times in the 4th and the 5th century by desolating onslaughts of Visigoths , Huns and Vandals . These did little to change its ethnic composition (the region being almost completely populated by Greeks or Hellenized people by that time) but left much of the region depopulated. Later in about 800 AD,
9646-433: The Aborigines and jointly with them made war upon the Sicels. It is possible that the Aborigines received them partly in the hope of gaining their assistance, but I believe it was chiefly on account of their kinship; for the Pelasgians, too, were a Greek nation originally from the Peloponnesus [...] He goes on to add that the nation wandered a great deal. They were originally natives of "Achaean Argos" descended from Pelasgus,
9828-401: The Athenians in speech and custom, to the Ionian colonies". Also, Herodotus wrote that the Pelasgians on the island of Lemnos opposite Troy once kidnapped the Hellenic women of Athens for wives, but the Athenian wives created a crisis by teaching their children "the language of Attica" instead of the Pelasgian. In Book 7, Herodotus mentioned "the Pelasgian city of Antandrus " and wrote about
10010-436: The Avars did not form any lasting settlements in the region. A branch of the Bulgars led by khan Kuber , however, settled in western Macedonia and eastern Albania around 680 AD and also engaged in attacks on Byzantium together with the Slavs . By this time, several different ethnicities inhabited the whole Macedonia region, with South Slavs forming the overall majority in the northern fringes of Macedonia while Greeks dominated
10192-416: The Bulgarian Kingdom " in 1640, mentioned the geographical and ethnic borders of Bulgaria and Bulgarian people including also " the greather part of Macedonia ... as far as Ohrid, up to the boundaries of Albania and Greece ... ". Hristofor Zhefarovich , a Macedonia-born 18th-century painter, had a crucial influence on the Bulgarian National Revival and significantly affected the entire Bulgarian heraldry of
10374-411: The Bulgarian cause preserved its dominant position in central and northern Macedonia and was also strong in southern Macedonia. The independence of Bulgaria in 1908 had the same effect on the Bulgarian idea in Macedonia as the independence of Greece to the Hellenic a century earlier. The consequences were closure of schools, expelling of priests of the Bulgarian Exarchate and emigration of the majority of
10556-455: The Bulgarian influence in Macedonia, thereby promoting Serbian interests in the region. However, by the beginning of the 20th century, the continued Serbian propaganda effort and especially the work of Cvijic had managed to firmly entrench the concept of the Macedonian Slavs in European public opinion, and the name was used almost as frequently as 'Bulgarians'. Even pro-Bulgarian researchers such as H. Henry Brailsford and N. Forbes argued that
10738-431: The Byzantines controlled it) was in the Theme of Thessalonica. Taking advantage of the desolation left by the nomadic tribes, Slavs settled in the Balkan Peninsula from the 6th century AD (see also: South Slavs ) . Aided by the Avars and by Turkic Bulgars , Slavic tribes in the 6th century started a gradual invasion into the lands of Byzantium . They infiltrated into Macedonia and reached as far south as Thessaly and
10920-531: The Crisaian plain which belonged to Delphi . These decisive victories led to Philip being recognized as the military leader of the League of Corinth , a Greek confederation allied against the Persian Empire , in 338/7 BC. Members of the league agreed never to wage war against each other, unless it was to suppress revolution . Philip II was involved quite early against the Achaemenid Empire. From around 352 BC, he supported several Persian opponents to Artaxerxes III , such as Artabazos II , Amminapes or
11102-452: The Czechs Karel Jaromír Erben in 1868 and F. Brodaska in 1869, Englishmen James Wyld in 1877 and Georgina Muir Mackenzie and Adeline Paulina Irby in 1863, Serbians Davidovitch in 1848, Constant Desjardins in 1853 and Stjepan Verković in 1860, Russians Victor Grigorovich in 1848 Vikentij Makušev and Mikhail Mirkovich in 1867, as well as Austrian Karl Sax in 1878 published ethnography or linguistic books, or travel notes, which defined
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#173276480692011284-497: The Great Tumulus at Aigai near modern Vergina , the capital and burial site of the kings of Macedon, and found that two of the four tombs in the tumulus were undisturbed since antiquity. Moreover, these two, and particularly Tomb II, contained fabulous treasures and objects of great quality and sophistication. Although there was much debate for some years, as suspected at the time of the discovery Tomb II has been shown to be that of Philip II as indicated by many features, including
11466-430: The Great, extended Macedonian power over key Greek city-states, and his campaigns, both local and abroad, would make the Macedonian power supreme from Greece, to Persia , Egypt , and the edge of India. Following this period there were repeated barbaric invasions of the Balkans by Celts . After the defeat of Andriscus in 148 BC, Macedonia officially became a province of the Roman Republic in 146 BC. Hellenization of
11648-595: The Greek historian Herodotus of Halicarnassus made many references to the Pelasgians. In Book 1, the Pelasgians are mentioned within the context of Croesus seeking to learn who the strongest Greeks were to befriend them. Afterwards, Herodotus ambivalently classified the Pelasgian language as " barbarian " though he thought of the Pelasgians to have been essentially Greek. Herodotus also discussed various areas inhabited (or previously inhabited) by Pelasgians/Pelasgian-speakers along with their different neighbors/co-residents: I am unable to state with certainty what language
11830-412: The Greeks living on the western coast and islands from Achaemenid rule. At first, all went well. The Greek cities on the western coast of Anatolia revolted until the news arrived that Philip had been assassinated and had been succeeded as king by his young son Alexander. The Macedonians were demoralized by Philip's death and were subsequently defeated near Magnesia by the Achaemenids under the command of
12012-403: The Greeks of the Trojan War as Pelasgians in his Metamorphoses : Sadly his father, Priam, mourned for him, not knowing that young Aesacus had assumed wings on his shoulders, and was yet alive. Then also Hector with his brothers made complete but unavailing sacrifice, upon a tomb which bore his carved name. Paris was absent. But soon afterwards, he brought into that land a ravished wife, Helen,
12194-418: The Greeks' distant past. In this way, the Pelasgians enabled Greek writers to trace the historical roots of Greek identity, to explain the development of contemporary cultural conditions, and to promote Greek political projects in various political contexts. In the Iliad , there were Pelasgians on both sides of the Trojan War . In the section known as the Catalogue of Trojans , they are mentioned between
12376-426: The Homeric Age . If the Pelasgians were not Indo-Europeans, the name in this derivation must have been assigned by the Hellenes. Ernest Klein argued that the ancient Greek word for "sea", pelagos and the Doric word plagos , "side" (which is flat) shared the same root, *plāk-, and that *pelag-skoi therefore meant "the sea men", where the sea is flat. This could be connected to the maritime marauders referred to as
12558-409: The Illyrians and Paeonians, who had attacked him when he became king, to semi-autonomous peoples. In Philip's time, Macedonians expanded and settled in many of the new adjoining territories, and Thrace up to the Nestus was colonized by Macedonian settlers. Strabo however testifies that the bulk of the population inhabiting in Upper Macedonia remained of Thraco-Illyrian stock. Philip's son, Alexander
12740-475: The Ionian inhabitants of "the land now called Achaea" (i.e., northwestern Peloponnese) being "called, according to the Greek account, Aegialean Pelasgi, or Pelasgi of the Sea Shore"; afterwards, they were called Ionians . Moreover, Herodotus mentioned that the Aegean islanders "were a Pelasgian race, who in later times took the name Ionians" and that the Aeolians , according to the Hellenes, were known anciently as "Pelasgians." In Book 8, Herodotus mentioned that
12922-419: The League in 356 BC. In 357 BC, Philip married the Epirote princess Olympias , who was the daughter of the king of the Molossians . Alexander was born in 356 BC, the same year as Philip's racehorse won at the Olympic Games . During 356 BC, Philip conquered the town of Crenides and changed its name to Philippi . He then established a powerful garrison there to control its mines, which yielded much of
13104-591: The Macedonian Slavs differed from both Bulgarians and Serbs. Practically all scholars before 1915, however, including strongly pro-Serbian ones such as Robert William Seton-Watson , admitted that the affinities of the majority of them lay with the Bulgarian cause and the Bulgarians and classified them as such. Even in 1914 the Carnegie Commission report states that the Serbs and Greeks classified
13286-410: The Macedonian Slavs, setting them apart from the Bulgarians, but to a series of catastrophic events, which, over a period of seventy years, diverted the course of Macedonian history away from its presumed trend. Nineteenth century Serbian nationalism viewed Serbs as the people chosen to lead and unite all southern Slavs into one country, Yugoslavia (the country of the southern Slavs). The conscience of
13468-448: The Macedonian army. The cavalry, which were the primary source of the army's strength, went from a force of 600 to 4000 from the time of the battles with the Illyrians to 334 BC. The discipline and training of the soldiers increased as well, and the Macedonian soldiers under Philip were provided with the possibility of promotion through the ranks and rewards and bonus wages for exceptional service. In addition to these changes, Philip created
13650-422: The Macedonian question into "the apple of constant discord" between Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria. The Bulgarian national revival in Macedonia was not unopposed. The Greeks and Serbs, too, had national ambitions in the region, and believed that these could be furthered by a policy of cultural and linguistic dissimilation of the Macedonian Slavs, to be achieved through educational and church propaganda. Nonetheless, by
13832-507: The Macedonians. From 352 to 346 BC, Philip did not again travel south. He was active in completing the subjugation of the Balkan hill-country to the west and north, and in reducing the Greek cities of the coast as far as the Hebrus . To the chief of these coastal cities, Olynthus , Philip continued to profess friendship until its neighboring cities were in his hands. In 348 BC, Philip started
14014-656: The Ottomans rejected the plan with the secret support of Britain. Having its reputation at stake, Russia had no other choice but to declare war on the Ottomans in April 1877. The Treaty of San Stefano from 1878, which reflected the maximum desired by Russian expansionist policy, gave Bulgaria the whole of Macedonia except Thessaloniki , the Chalcidice peninsula and the valley of the Aliakmon . The Congress of Berlin in
14196-546: The Pelasgians and to be the "child of Palaichthon (or 'ancient earth') whom the earth brought forth". The Danaids call the country the "Apian hills" and claim that it understands the karbana audan ( accusative case , and in the Dorian dialect), which many translate as "barbarian speech" but Karba (where the Karbanoi live) is in fact a non-Greek word. They claim to descend from ancestors in ancient Argos even though they are of
14378-700: The Pelasgians dispersed to Crete , the Cyclades , Histaeotis, Boeotia , Phocis , Euboea , the coast along the Hellespont and the islands, especially Lesbos , which had been colonized by Macar son of Crinacus . Most went to Dodona and eventually being driven from there to Italy (then called Saturnia), they landed at Spina at the mouth of the Po River . Still others crossed the Apennine Mountains to Umbria and being driven from there went to
14560-653: The Pelasgians of Athens were previously called Cranai . In the History of the Peloponnesian War , the Greek historian Thucydides wrote about the Pelasgians stating that: Before the time of Hellen , son of Deucalion [...] the country went by the names of the different tribes, in particular of the Pelasgian. It was not till Hellen and his sons grew strong in Phthiotis , and were invited as allies into
14742-456: The Pelasgians simply called their gods theoi prior to naming them on the grounds that the gods established all affairs in their order ( thentes ); the author also stated that the gods of the Pelasgians were the Cabeiri . Later, Herodotus stated that the entire territory of Greece (i.e., Hellas ) was initially called "Pelasgia". In Book 5, Herodotus mentioned the Pelasgians as inhabitants of
14924-450: The Pelasgians spoke a barbarian language. And so, if the Pelasgian language was spoken in all these places, the people of Attica being originally Pelasgian, must have learned a new language when they became Hellenes. As a matter of fact, the people of Krestonia and Plakia no longer speak the same language, which shows that they continue to use the dialect they brought with them when they migrated to those lands. Furthermore, Herodotus discussed
15106-663: The Pelasgians spoke, but we could consider the speech of the Pelasgians who still exist in settlements above Tyrrhenia in the city of Kreston, formerly neighbors to the Dorians who at that time lived in the land now called Thessaliotis; also the Pelasgians who once lived with the Athenians and then settled Plakia and Skylake in the Hellespont; and along with those who lived with all the other communities and were once Pelasgian but changed their names. If one can judge by this evidence,
15288-690: The Pelasgians were driven out by the Greeks and departed for Italy. They landed at the mouth of the Po River , near the Etruscan city of Spina , then took the inland city "Crotona" ( Κρότωνα ), and from there colonized Tyrrhenia . The inference is that Hellanicus believed the Pelasgians of Thessaly (and indirectly of the Peloponnese) to have been the ancestors of the Etruscans . In the Histories ,
15470-571: The Pelasgians were migrants like storks, possibly from Arcadia , where they nest. Aristophanes deals effectively with this etymology in his comedy The Birds . One of the laws of "the storks" in the satirical Cloud Cuckoo Land ( Ancient Greek : Νεφελοκοκκυγία , romanized : Nephelokokkugía ), playing upon the Athenian belief that they were originally Pelasgians, is that grown-up storks must support their parents by migrating elsewhere and conducting warfare. Gilbert Murray summarized
15652-633: The Pelasgians while highlighting their relationship to the Danaids , a relationship introduced and explored in depth in Aeschylus ' Suppliants . Sophocles presents Inachus, in a fragment of a missing play entitled Inachus , as the elder in the lands of Argos, the Heran hills and among the Tyrsenoi Pelasgoi, an unusual hyphenated noun construction, "Tyrsenians-Pelasgians". Interpretation
15834-459: The Slavic population of Macedonia as Bulgarian. Austrian doctor Josef Müller published travel notes in 1844 in which he regarded the Slavic population of Macedonia as Serbian. The region was further identified as predominantly Greek by French F. Bianconi in 1877 and by Englishman Edward Stanford in 1877. He maintained that the urban population of Macedonia was entirely Greek, whereas the peasantry
16016-417: The Slavs of Macedonia as a distinct group "Slav-Macedonians" for political purposes and this term is "political euphemism designed to conceal the existence of Bulgarians in Macedonia ". Pelasgians The name Pelasgians ( Ancient Greek : Πελασγοί , romanized : Pelasgoí , singular: Πελασγός Pelasgós ) was used by Classical Greek writers to refer either to the predecessors of
16198-405: The Slavs resulted in linguistic similarities which are reflected in modern Bulgarian , Albanian , Romanian and Macedonian , all of them members of the Balkan language area . The Slavs also occupied the hinterland of Thessaloniki, launching consecutive attacks on the city in 584, 586, 609, 620, and 622 AD, but never taking it. Detachments of Avars often joined the Slavs in their onslaughts, but
16380-680: The Spartans from various parts. In 345 BC, Philip conducted a hard-fought campaign against the Ardiaioi ( Ardiaei ), under their king Pleuratus I , during which Philip was seriously wounded in the lower right leg by an Ardian soldier. In 342 BC, Philip led a military expedition north against the Scythians , conquering the Thracian fortified settlement Eumolpia to give it his name, Philippopolis (modern Plovdiv ). In 340 BC, Philip started
16562-655: The actual background to the assassination, it may have had an enormous effect on later world events, far beyond what any conspirators could have predicted. As asserted by some modern historians, had the older and more settled Philip been the one in charge of the war against Persia, he might have been content to make relatively moderate conquests, e.g., making Anatolia into a Macedonian province, and, unlike his son Alexander, not have wanted to push further into an overall conquest of Persia and further campaigns in India. In 1977, Greek archaeologist Manolis Andronikos started excavating
16744-579: The ancient Greek origins of the Pelasgians as well as their widespread settlements throughout central Greece and the Peloponnese . In Aeschylus's play, The Suppliants , the Danaids fleeing from Egypt seek asylum from King Pelasgus of Argos, which he says is on the Strymon , including Perrhaebia in the north, the Thessalian Dodona and the slopes of the Pindus mountains on the west and
16926-507: The ancient authors said they were, beginning with Homer. The Peloponnese was called "Pelasgia". In the Roman Antiquities , Dionysius of Halicarnassus in several pages gives a synoptic interpretation of the Pelasgians based on the sources available to him then, concluding that Pelasgians were Greek: Afterwards some of the Pelasgians who inhabited Thessaly, as it is now called, being obliged to leave their country, settled among
17108-407: The ancient capital of the kingdom of Macedon. Philip and his royal court were gathered in order to celebrate the marriage of Alexander I of Epirus and Cleopatra of Macedon , Philip's daughter by his fourth wife Olympias . While the king was entering into the town's theatre, he was unprotected in order to appear approachable to the Greek diplomats and dignitaries who were present at that time. Philip
17290-521: The arguments which Greece used to promote its claim to the whole region were usually of historical and religious character. The Greeks consistently linked nationality to the allegiance to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. "Bulgarophone", "Albanophone" and "Vlachophone" Greeks were coined to describe the population who were Slavic, Albanian or Vlach ( Aromanian )-speaking. There was also pressure on Aromanians to become linguistically dissimilated from
17472-753: The assassination of Alexander II , Philip was sent as a hostage to Illyria by Ptolemy of Aloros . Philip was later held in Thebes ( c. 368 –365 BC), which at the time was the leading city of Greece . While in Thebes, Philip received a military and diplomatic education from Epaminondas , and lived with Pammenes , who was an enthusiastic advocate of the Sacred Band of Thebes . In 364 BC, Philip returned to Macedon . In 359 BC, perhaps in May, Philip's other brother, King Perdiccas III , died in battle against
17654-417: The bodyguards. The three sons of Aeropus of Lyncestis were also suspected of taking part in the plot, acting as accomplices of Pausanias. Arrhabaeus and Heromenes were put to death, while the third brother, Alexander of Lyncestis , was pardoned. The reasons for the assassination are difficult to ascertain. There was controversy even among ancient historians; the only known surviving contemporary account
17836-447: The brother of Onomarchus, to leave. That same year, Onomarchus and his army defeated Philip in two succeeding battles. Philip returned to Thessaly the next summer, this time with an army of 20,000 infantry, 3,000 cavalry, and the additional support of the Thessalian League's forces. At the Battle of Crocus Field , 6,000 Phocians fell and 3,000 were taken as prisoners and later drowned. This battle earned Philip immense prestige as well as
18018-400: The cause of a disastrous war, together with a thousand ships, and all the great Pelasgian nation. [...] Here, when a sacrifice had been prepared to Jove , according to the custom of their land, and when the ancient altar glowed with fire, the Greeks observed an azure colored snake crawling up in a plane tree near the place where they had just begun their sacrifice. Among the highest branches was
18200-591: The city to the ground. The same fate was inflicted on other cities of the Chalcidian peninsula, resulting in the Chalcidian League dissolving. Macedon and the regions adjoining it having now been securely consolidated, Philip celebrated his Olympic Games at Dium . In 347 BC, Philip advanced to the conquest of the eastern districts about Hebrus, and compelled the submission of the Thracian prince Cersobleptes . In 346 BC, he intervened effectively in
18382-405: The city to them after his conquest, in exchange for Pydna (which was lost by Macedon in 363 BC). However, after conquering Amphipolis, Philip captured Pydna for himself and kept both cities (357 BC). Athens soon declared war against him, and as a result, Philip allied Macedon with the Chalcidian League of Olynthus . He subsequently conquered Potidaea , this time keeping his word and ceding it to
18564-629: The claim of a common Thraco-Roman origin of the Romanians (Daco-Romanians) and the Aromanians and Megleno-Romanians. The first Romanian school in Macedonia was established in 1864. Eventually, the total number of schools grew to 93 at the beginning of the 20th century. Romanian influence in the area made some success in Bitola, Kruševo, and in the Aromanian villages in the districts of Bitola and Ohrid. Most Aromanians regard and regarded themselves as
18746-756: The country of the Aborigines where they consented to a treaty and settled at Velia . They and the Aborigenes took over Umbria but were dispossessed by the Tyrrhenians . The author then continues to detail the tribulations of the Pelasgians and then goes on to the Tyrrhenians, whom he is careful to distinguish from the Pelasgians. In his Description of Greece , Pausanias mentions the Arcadians who state that Pelasgus (along with his followers)
18928-444: The crime itself, regardless of how sympathetic they might have seemed afterward. Scholar Daniel Ogden has noted that if there was a sexual side to the murder, "then it can be contextualized in this regard against known homosexual relationships in and around the Macedonian court" and that according to Aristotle, the regicide of Archelaus I of Macedon was by his former eromenoi , Crateuas and Hellenocrates of Larissa. Whatever
19110-438: The definition given by Cvijic (see above). The name "Macedonian Slavs" started to appear in publications at the end of the 1880s and the beginning of the 1890s. Though the successes of the Serbian propaganda effort had proved that the Slavic population of Macedonia was not only Bulgarian, they still failed to convince that this population was, in fact, Serbian. Rarely used until the end of the 19th century compared to 'Bulgarians',
19292-600: The derivation from pelas gē ("neighboring land"), current at his time: "If Pelasgoi is connected with πέλας , 'near', the word would mean 'neighbor' and would denote the nearest strange people to the invading Greeks". Julius Pokorny derived Pelasgoi from *pelag-skoi "flatland-inhabitants"; specifically "inhabitants of the Thessalian plain ". He details a previous derivation, which appears in English at least as early as William Ewart Gladstone 's Studies on Homer and
19474-535: The disastrous idea of working independently on the advancement of their own local dialect and what’s more, of their own, separate Macedonian church leadership." In 1875 Gjorgjija Pulevski published in Belgrade a book called Dictionary of Three Languages ( Rečnik od tri jezika ). The text of the Rečnik contains programmatic statements where Pulevski argues for an independent Slavic Macedonian nation and language. It
19656-402: The eastern dialect was too close to Bulgarian and the northern one too close to Serbian). Misirkov calls this language Macedonian. While Misirkov talked about the Macedonian consciousness and the Macedonian language as a future goal, he described the wider region of Macedonia in the early 20th century as inhabited by Bulgarians, Greeks, Serbs, Turks, Albanians, Aromanians, and Jews. As regards to
19838-661: The end of the Third Macedonian War (171–168 BC) and established the Roman province of Macedonia after the Fourth Macedonian War (150–148 BC). Before the reign of Alexander I , father of Perdiccas II , the ancient Macedonians lived mostly on lands adjacent to the Haliakmon , in the far south of the modern Greek province of Macedonia . Alexander is credited with having added to Macedonia many of
20020-719: The era is the study by William Ewart Gladstone , who was a trained classicist. Unless further ancient texts come to light, advances on the subject cannot be made. Therefore the most likely source of progress regarding the Pelasgians continues to be archaeology and related sciences. The definition of the term Pelasgians in ancient sources was fluid. The Pelasgians were variously described by ancient authors as Greek , semi-Greek, non-Greek and pre-Greek . There are no emic perspectives of Pelasgian identity. According to an analysis by historian Tristn Lambright of Jacksonville State University : While defining Greek identity in terms of collectivity or superiority...Greek writers always had
20202-531: The ethnic Macedonians themselves, Misirkov maintained that they had called themselves Bulgarians until the publication of the book and were always called Bulgarians by independent observers until 1878 when the Serbian views also started to get recognition. He also explained that the reason for that was because local Slavs were allies with the Bulgars in the wars against Byzantine Empire and because of that Byzantine Greeks renamed them into "Bulgarians", in that way
20384-630: The exploits of Alexander the Great ( r. 336–323 BC– ), the conquest of the Achaemenid Empire , the establishment of the diadochi successor states , and the inauguration of the Hellenistic period in West Asia , Greece , and the broader Mediterranean world . The Macedonians were eventually conquered by the Roman Republic , which dismantled the Macedonian monarchy at
20566-665: The fact that the April Uprising of the spring of 1876, which attracted international attention to the Bulgarian national question, hardly broke out there. European ethnographs and linguists until the Congress of Berlin usually regarded the language of the Slavic population of Macedonia as Bulgarian . French scholars Ami Boué in 1840 and Guillaume Lejean in 1861, Germans August Grisebach in 1841, J. Hahn in 1858 and 1863, August Heinrich Petermann in 1869 and Heinrich Kiepert in 1876, Slovak Pavel Jozef Šafárik in 1842 and
20748-430: The father of Alexander the Great . The rise of Macedon , including its conquest and political consolidation of most of Classical Greece during his reign, was achieved by his reformation of the army (the establishment of the Macedonian phalanx that proved critical in securing victories on the battlefield), his extensive use of siege engines, and his use of effective diplomacy and marriage alliances. After defeating
20930-779: The first man, born of the earth. This account features centrally in the construction of an enduring autochthonous Arcadian identity into the Classical period . In a fragment quoted by Pausanias , Asius describes the foundational hero of the Greek ethnic groups as "godlike Pelasgus [whom the] black earth gave up". Aeschylus incorporates all the territories that the Archaic tradition identifies as Pelasgian, including Thessaly (the region of Homer's Pelasgian Argos), Dodona (the seat of Homer's Pelasgian Zeus), and Arcadia (the region ruled by autochthonous Pelasgus ' son Lycaon ) into an Argive-Pelasgian kingdom ruled by Pelasgus. This affirms
21112-408: The free acquisition of Pherae . He was made the leader ( archon ) of the Thessalian League and was able to claim Magnesia and Perrhaebia, which expanded his territory to Pagasae. Philip did not attempt to advance into Central Greece because the Athenians, unable to arrive in time to defend Pagasae, had occupied Thermopylae . There were no hostilities with Athens yet, but Athens was threatened by
21294-481: The gold he later used for his campaigns. In the meantime, his general Parmenion defeated the Illyrians again. In 355–354 BC he besieged Methone , the last city on the Thermaic Gulf controlled by Athens. During the siege, Philip was injured in his right eye, which was later removed surgically. Despite the arrival of two Athenian fleets, the city fell in 354 BC. Philip also attacked Abdera and Maronea, on
21476-612: The highlands of western Macedonia, the central plains, and the coastline. At the beginning of the 9th century, Bulgaria conquered the Northern Byzantine lands, including Macedonia B and part of Macedonia A. Those regions remained under Bulgarian rule for two centuries, until the destruction of Bulgaria by the Byzantine Emperor Basil II (nicknamed "the Bulgar-slayer") in 1018. In the 11th and
21658-484: The home of a large Jewish population following Spain's expulsions of Jews after 1492. The Jews later formed small colonies in other Macedonian cities, most notably Bitola and Serres . The rise of European nationalism in the 18th century led to the expansion of the Hellenic idea in Macedonia. Its main pillar throughout the centuries of Ottoman rule had been the indigenous Greek population of historical Macedonia. Under
21840-617: The idea was promoted by some of the leftist members of the Macedonian Federative Organization and later IMRO (United) and also by some members of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia . In 1934 the Comintern in coordination with IMRO (United) published a resolution on the Macedonian question in which for the first time, an authoritative international organization has recognized the existence of
22022-557: The immediate succession of his son Alexander, who would go on to invade the Achaemenid Empire in his father's stead. Philip was born in either 383 or 382 BC, and was the youngest son of King Amyntas III and Eurydice of Lynkestis . He had two older brothers, Alexander II and Perdiccas III , as well as a sister named Eurynoe. Amyntas later married another woman, Gygaea, with whom he had three sons, Philip's half-brothers Archelaus , Arrhidaeus, and Menelaus . After
22204-515: The influence of the Greek schools and the Patriarchate of Constantinople , however, it started to spread among the other orthodox subjects of the Empire as the urban Christian population of Slavic and Albanian origin started to view itself increasingly as Greek. The Greek language became a symbol of civilization and a basic means of communication between non-Muslims. The process of Hellenization
22386-402: The inhabitants of Crete . Odysseus , affecting to be Cretan himself, instances Pelasgians among the tribes in the ninety cities of Crete , "language mixing with language side by side". Last on his list, Homer distinguishes them from other ethnicities on the island: "Cretans proper", Achaeans, Cydonians (of the city of Cydonia /modern Chania ), Dorians, and "noble Pelasgians". Hesiod , in
22568-493: The intelligentsia wrote in a language which they called Bulgarian and strove for a more even representation of the local Bulgarian dialects spoken in Macedonia in formal Bulgarian. The autonomous Bulgarian Exarchate established in 1870 included northwestern Macedonia. After the overwhelming vote of the districts of Ohrid and Skopje , it grew to include the whole of present-day Vardar and Pirin Macedonia in 1874. This process of Bulgarian national revival in Macedonia, however,
22750-465: The islands of Lemnos and Imbros . In Book 6, the Pelasgians of Lemnos were originally Hellespontine Pelasgians who had been living in Athens but whom the Athenians resettled on Lemnos and then found it necessary to reconquer the island. This expulsion of (non-Athenian) Pelasgians from Athens may reflect, according to the historian Robert Buck, "a dim memory of forwarding of refugees, closely akin to
22932-585: The lands that would become part of the core Macedonian territory: Pieria, Bottiaia , Mygdonia, and Eordaia (Thuc. 2.99). Anthemus, Crestonia, and Bisaltia also seem to have been added during his reign (Thuc. 2.99). Most of these lands were previously inhabited by Thracian tribes, and Thucydides records how the Thracians were pushed to the mountains when the Macedonians acquired their lands. Generations after Alexander, Philip II of Macedon would add new lands to Macedonia , and also reduce neighboring powers such as
23114-563: The legendary Temenus of Argos , while the region of Macedon perhaps derived its name from Makedon , a figure of Greek mythology . Traditionally ruled by independent families, the Macedonians seem to have accepted Argead rule by the time of Alexander I ( r. 498–454 BC– ). Under Philip II ( r. 359–336 BC– ), the Macedonians are credited with numerous military innovations , which enlarged their territory and increased their control over other areas extending into Thrace . This consolidation of territory allowed for
23296-527: The lower course of the Vardar. Colonies of other Turkic tribes such as Uzes, Petchenegs, and Cumans were also introduced at various periods from the 11th to the 13th century. All these were eventually Hellenized or Bulgarized. Romani , migrating from north India, reached the Balkans - including Macedonia - around the 14th century, with some of them settling there. Successive waves of Romani immigration occurred in
23478-617: The man who had failed to avenge his damaged honour, and accordingly to plan to kill Philip. Some time after the alleged rape, while Attalus was away in Asia fighting the Persians, he put his plan into action. Other historians (e.g., Justin 9.7) suggested that Alexander and/or his mother Olympias were at least privy to the intrigue, if not themselves instigators. Olympias seems to have been anything but discreet in manifesting her gratitude to Pausanias, according to Justin's report: He writes that
23660-519: The mercenary Memnon of Rhodes . The kings of Macedon practiced polygamy . Philip II had seven wives throughout his life, all members of royalty from foreign dynasties, and all of which were considered queens, making their children royalty as well. The dates of Philip's multiple marriages and the names of some of his wives are contested. Below is the order of marriages: King Philip was assassinated in October 336 BC (perhaps 25 October) at Aegae ,
23842-431: The monarchy, the core of Macedonian society was its nobility. Similar to the aristocracy of neighboring Thessaly , their wealth was largely built on herding horses and cattle . Although composed of various clans, the kingdom of Macedonia , established around the 8th century BC, is mostly associated with the Argead dynasty and the tribe named after it. The dynasty was allegedly founded by Perdiccas I , descendant of
24024-450: The nations. The most noticeable characteristic was the degree to which nation-states use the state as an instrument of national unity , in economic, social and cultural life. By the 19th century, the Ottomans had fallen well behind the rest of Europe in science, technology, and industry. By that time Bulgarians had initiated a purposeful struggle against the Greek clerics. Bulgarian religious leaders had realised that any further struggle for
24206-456: The non-Greek population was not yet complete in 146 BC, and many of the Thracian and Illyrian tribes had preserved their languages. It is also possible that the ancient Macedonian tongue was still spoken, alongside Koine , the common Greek language of the Hellenistic era. From an early period, the Roman province of Macedonia included Epirus , Thessaly , parts of Thrace and Illyria , thus making
24388-470: The non-Greek speakers to abandon what they regarded as a "worthless" idiom and adopt the superior Greek speech: "There we are Metsovian brothers, together with those who are fooling themselves with this sordid and vile Aromanian language... forgive me for calling it a language", "repulsive speech with a disgusting diction". As with the Serbian and Bulgarian propaganda efforts, the Greek one initially also concentrated on education. Greek schools in Macedonia at
24570-535: The official language of the Macedonian state further influencing its codification in 1945. The state was later incorporated in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia . The present-day historians from North Macedonia claim that IMRO was split into two factions: the first aimed an ethnic Macedonian state, and the second believed in a Macedonia as a part of wider Bulgarian entity. These claims of present-day historians from North Macedonia that
24752-566: The only Turkish-Arabic they ever bothered to learn was how to say "wa-llahi" or "by Allah". The destruction and abandoning of the Christian Aromanian city of Moscopole and other important Aromanian settlements in the southern Albania (Epirus-Macedonia) region in the second half of the 18th century caused a large-scale migration of thousands of Aromanians to the cities and villages of Western Macedonia, most notably to Bitola , Krushevo and surrounding regions. Thessaloniki also became
24934-439: The only guerilla organization established by locals, quickly developed a wide network of committees and agents turning into a "state within the state" in much of Macedonia. The organization changed its name on several occasions, settling to IMRO in 1920. IMRO fought not only against the Ottoman authorities, but also against the pro-Serbian and pro-Greek parties in Macedonia, terrorising the population supporting them. The failure of
25116-465: The option to resort to traditions about Pelasgian ancestors to emphasize the shared legacy of all Greeks as descendants of the autochthonous Pelasgians. By contrast, if the definition of Greek identity was parsed in terms of opposition, Greek writers could employ discourses about the alterity and barbarity of the Pelasgians to underline the distinction between Greek and non-Greek peoples. Consistently, however, Pelasgians appear in Greek literature as links to
25298-518: The other cities, that one by one they gradually acquired from the connection the name of Hellenes ; though a long time elapsed before that name could fasten itself upon all. The author regards the Athenians as having lived in scattered independent settlements in Attica ; but at some time after Theseus , they changed residence to Athens , which was already populated. A plot of land below the Acropolis
25480-465: The outlets of the Peneus River and Thermopylae as far as the mountainous country of Pindus" and states that it took its name from Pelasgian rule. He includes also the tribes of Epirus as Pelasgians (based on the opinions of "many"). Lesbos is named Pelasgian. Caere was settled by Pelasgians from Thessaly, who called it by its former name, "Agylla". Pelasgians also settled around the mouth of
25662-671: The peripheral parts of Serbian nation grew, therefore the officials and the wide circles of population considered the Slavs of Macedonia as "Southern Serbs", Moslems as "Islamized Serbs", and Shtokavian speaking part of today's Croatian population as "Catholic Serbs". But, the basic interests of Serbian state policy was directed to the liberation of the Ottoman regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo; whilst Macedonia and Vojvodina should be "liberated later". The Congress of Berlin of 1878, which granted Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austro-Hungarian occupation and administration whilst nominally Ottoman, redirected Serbia's ambitions to Macedonia and
25844-442: The plot seems specious, to act as they did would have required them to act with an improbable degree of brazen effrontery in the face of a military whose members were personally loyal to Philip. What seems to have been recorded, rather, are simply suspicions that were naturally directed towards the chief beneficiaries of the assassination; however, their actions in response to the murder are hardly evidence of their guilt with respect to
26026-706: The political oppression by the Ottomans and the religious and cultural one by the Greek clergy. The Bulgarian language was preserved as a cultural medium only in a handful of monasteries, and to rise in terms of social status for the ordinary Bulgarian usually meant undergoing a process of Hellenisation . The Slavonic liturgy was, however, preserved at the lower levels of the Bulgarian Archbishopric of Ohrid for several centuries until its abolition in 1767. The creator of modern Bulgarian historiography, Petar Bogdan Bakshev in his first work " Description of
26208-603: The position of power, the Albanian Muslims managed to push out their Christian neighbours and conquered additional territories in the 18th and the 19th centuries. Pressures from central government following the first Russo-Turkish war that ended in 1774 and in which Ottoman Greeks were implicated as a "fifth column" led to the superficial Islamization of several thousand Greek-speakers in western Macedonia. These Greek Muslims retained their Greek language and identity, remained Crypto-Christians , and were subsequently called Vallahades by local Greek Orthodox Christians because apparently
26390-419: The predominant Bulgarian character of the Slavs in Macedonia reflected in the borders of future autonomous Bulgaria as it was drawn there. The Great Powers eventually gave their consent to variant, which excluded historical Macedonia and Thrace , and denied Bulgaria access to the Aegean sea , but otherwise incorporated all other regions in the Ottoman Empire inhabited by Bulgarians. At the last minute, however,
26572-474: The region of Macedonia permanently lose any connection with its ancient borders, and now be the home of a greater variety of inhabitants. As the Greek state of Byzantium gradually emerged as a successor state to the Roman Empire , Macedonia became one of its most important provinces as it was close to the Empire's capital ( Constantinople ) and included its second largest city ( Thessaloniki ). According to Byzantine maps that were recorded by Ernest Honigmann, by
26754-403: The region. Towns destroyed in Vardar Macedonia during the conquest were renewed, this time populated exclusively by Muslims. The Ottoman element in Macedonia was especially strong in the 17th and the 18th century with travellers defining the majority of the population, especially the urban one, as Muslim. The Ottoman population, however, sharply declined at the end of the 18th and the beginning of
26936-448: The relationship between the Pelasgians and the (other) Greeks, which, according to Pericles Georges, reflected the "rivalry within Greece itself between [...] Dorian Sparta and Ionian Athens." Specifically, Herodotus stated that the Hellenes separated from the Pelasgians with the former group surpassing the latter group numerically: As for the Hellenes, it seems obvious to me that ever since they came into existence they have always used
27118-432: The rights of the Bulgarians in the Ottoman Empire could not succeed unless they managed to obtain at least some degree of autonomy from the Patriarchate of Constantinople . The foundation of the Bulgarian Exarchate in 1870, which included most of Macedonia by a firman of Sultan Abdülaziz was the direct result of the struggle of the Bulgarian Orthodox against the domination of the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople in
27300-514: The same language. They were weak at first, when they were separated from the Pelasgians, but they grew from a small group into a multitude, especially when many peoples, including other barbarians in great numbers, had joined them. Moreover, I do not think the Pelasgian, who remained barbarians, ever grew appreciably in number or power. In Book 2, Herodotus alluded to the Pelasgians as inhabitants of Samothrace , an island located just north of Troy, before coming to Attica. Moreover, Herodotus wrote that
27482-444: The same night of her return from exile, she placed a crown on the assassin's corpse, and later erected a tumulus over his grave and ordered that annual sacrifices be made to the memory of Pausanias. Some modern historians have claimed that none of the accounts are probable: They say that in the case of Pausanias, the purported motive for the crime hardly seems adequate. Furthermore they claim that implicating Alexander and Olympias in
27664-412: The same year redistributed most Bulgarian territories that the previous treaty had given to the Principality of Bulgaria back to the Ottoman Empire. This included the whole of Macedonia. As a result, in late 1878, the Kresna–Razlog uprising – an unsuccessful Bulgarian revolt against the Ottoman rule in the region of Macedonia – broke out. However the decision taken at the Congress of Berlin soon turned
27846-439: The serpent, coiled about the tree, was transformed to a stone, curled crooked as a snake. Hecataeus of Miletus in a fragment from Genealogiai states that the genos ("clan") descending from Deucalion ruled Thessaly and that it was called "Pelasgia" from king Pelasgus. A second fragment states that Pelasgus was the son of Zeus and Niobe and that his son Lycaon founded a dynasty of kings of Arcadia . A fragment from
28028-424: The shores of the sea on the east; that is, a territory including but somewhat larger than classical Pelasgiotis . The southern boundary is not mentioned; however, Apis is said to have come to Argos from Naupactus "across" ( peras ), implying that Argos includes all of east Greece from the north of Thessaly to the Peloponnesian Argos, where the Danaids are probably to be conceived as having landed. He claims to rule
28210-414: The siege of Perinthus , and in 339 BC, began another siege against the city of Byzantium . As both sieges failed, Philip's influence over Greece was compromised. He successfully reasserted his authority in the Aegean by defeating an alliance of Thebans and Athenians at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, and in the same year, destroyed Amfissa because the residents had illegally cultivated part of
28392-415: The siege of Olynthus, which, apart from its strategic position, housed his half-brothers, Arrhidaeus and Menelaus , pretenders to the Macedonian throne. Olynthus had at first allied itself with Philip, but later shifted its allegiance to Athens. The latter, however, did nothing to help the city because its expeditions were held back by a revolt in Euboea . The Macedonian king took Olynthus in 348 BC and razed
28574-420: The sixteenth book of Diodorus' history, Pausanias of Orestis had been a lover of Philip, but became jealous when Philip turned his attention to a younger man, also called Pausanias. The elder Pausanias' taunting of the new lover caused the younger Pausanias to throw away his life in battle, which turned his friend Attalus against the elder Pausanias. Attalus took his revenge by getting Pausanias of Orestis drunk at
28756-441: The son of Zeus and Niobe. They migrated from there to Haemonia (later called Thessaly), where they "drove out the barbarian inhabitants" and divided the country into Phthiotis, Achaia, and Pelasgiotis, named after Achaeus, Phthius and Pelasgus, "the sons of Larissa and Poseidon." Subsequently, "about the sixth generation they were driven out by the Curetes and Leleges , who are now called Aetolians and Locrians ". From there,
28938-432: The southern extremities of the region – the Orestian highlands – since before the Dark Ages . The Macedonian tribes subsequently moved down from Orestis in the upper Haliacmon due to pressure from the Orestae . The name of the region of Macedonia ( Greek : Μακεδονία , Makedonia ) derives from the tribal name of the ancient Macedonians ( Greek : Μακεδόνες , Makedónes ). According to the Greek historian Herodotus ,
29120-413: The term 'Macedonian Slavs' served more to conceal rather than define the national character of the population of Macedonia. Scholars resorted to it usually as a result of Serbian pressure or used it as a general term for the Slavs inhabiting Macedonia regardless of their ethnic affinities. The Serbian politician Stojan Novaković proposed in 1887 employing the Macedonistic ideas as they means to counteract
29302-479: The term became a identification for Macedonian Slavs in the future. Misirkov rejected the ideas in On Macedonian Matters later and turned into a staunch advocate of the Bulgarian cause. He returned to the ethnic Macedonian idea again in the 1920s. Another prominent activist for the ethnic Macedonian national revival was Dimitrija Čupovski, who was one of the founders and the president of the Macedonian Literary Society established in Saint Petersburg in 1902. During
29484-403: The terms "Macedonian Slavs" and "Bulgarians", the "Slavic language" and the "Bulgarian language". The chapter on the Macedonians Slavs/the Bulgarians is titled the "Bulgarian movement", the IMRO activists are called "Bulgarophile Macedonians". The third use of the term can be noted among scholars from the allied countries (above all France and the United Kingdom) after 1915 and is roughly equal to
29666-497: The towns all being small ones. The historian Ephorus , building on a fragment from Hesiod that attests to a tradition of an aboriginal Pelasgian people in Arcadia, developed a theory of the Pelasgians as a people living a "military way of life" ( stratiōtikon bion ) "and that, in converting many peoples to the same mode of life, they imparted their name to all", meaning "all of Hellas". They colonized Crete and extended their rule over Epirus, Thessaly and by implication over wherever else
29848-403: The turn of the 20th century totalled 927 with 1,397 teachers and 57,607 pupils. As from the 1890s, Greece also started sending armed guerrilla groups to Macedonia (see Greek Struggle for Macedonia ) especially after the death of Pavlos Melas , which fought the detachments of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO). The Greek cause predominated in historical Macedonia where it
30030-538: The use of the first meaning of the term was, for example, the ethnographic map of the Slavic peoples published in (1890) by Russian scholar Zarjanko, which identified the Slavs of Macedonia as Bulgarians. Following an official protest from Serbia the map was later reprinted identifying them under the politically correct name "Macedonian Slavs". The term was used in a completely different sense by British journalist Henry Brailsford in Macedonia, its races and their future (1906). The book contains Brailford's impressions from
30212-452: The war between Thebes and the Phocians, but his wars with Athens continued intermittently. However, Athens had made overtures for peace, and when Philip again moved south, peace was sworn in Thessaly. With key Greek city-states in submission, Philip II turned to Sparta , warning them "If I invade Laconia, I shall turn you out." The Spartans' laconic reply was one word: "If." Philip proceeded to invade Laconia, devastate much of it and eject
30394-409: The worship of the family of Alexander the Great and may have housed the cult statue of Philip. It is probable that he was regarded as a hero or deified on his death. Though the Macedonians did not consider Philip a god, he did receive other forms of recognition from the Greeks, e.g. at Eresos (altar to Zeus Philippeios), Ephesos (his statue was placed in the temple of Artemis ), and at Olympia, where
30576-476: The writings of Acusilaus asserts that the Peloponnesians were called "Pelasgians" after Pelasgus, a son of Zeus and Niobe . Hellanicus of Lesbos concerns himself with one word in one line of the Iliad , "pasture-land of horses", applied to Argos in the Peloponnesus . According to Hellanicus, from Pelasgus and his wife Menippe came a line of kings: Phrastōr , Amyntōr , Teutamides and Nanas (kings of Pelasgiotis in Thessaly). During Nanas's reign,
30758-415: The young Macedonian intelligentsia. This first emigration triggered a constant trickle of Macedonian-born refugees and emigrants to Bulgaria. Their number stood at ca. 100,000 by 1912. The ethnic Macedonian ideology during the second half of the 19th century was at its inception. One of the first preserved accounts is an article The Macedonian question by Petko Slaveykov , published on 18 January 1871 in
30940-451: Was additionally reinforced after the abolition of the Bulgarian Archbishopric of Ohrid in 1767. Though with a predominantly Greek clergy, the Archbishopric did not yield to the direct order of Constantinople and had autonomy in many vital domains. However, the poverty of the Christian peasantry and the lack of proper schooling in villages preserved the linguistic diversity of the Macedonian countryside. The Hellenic idea reached its peak during
31122-462: Was called "Pelasgian" and was regarded as cursed, but the Athenians settled there anyway. In connection with the campaign against Amphipolis , Thucydides mentions that several settlements on the promontory of Actē were home to: [...] mixed barbarian races speaking the two languages. There is also a small Chalcidian element; but the greater number are Tyrrheno-Pelasgians once settled in Lemnos and Athens, and Bisaltians, Crestonians and Eonians;
31304-510: Was identified as Serbian or Albanian of Serbian origin (Albanized Serbs, called "Arnauts") and the Greeks along the Aliákmon as Greeks of Serbian origin (Hellenized Serbs). The work of Gopčević was further developed by two Serbian scholars, geographer Jovan Cvijić and linguist Aleksandar Belić . Less extreme than Gopčević, Cvijić and Belić claimed only the Slavs of northern Macedonia were Serbian whereas those of southern Macedonia were identified as "Macedonian Slavs", an amorphous Slavic mass that
31486-445: Was much less successful in historical Macedonia, which beside Slavs had compact Greek and Aromanian populations. The Hellenic idea and the Patriarchate of Constantinople preserved much of their earlier influence among local Bulgarians and the arrival of the Bulgarian idea turned the region into a battlefield between those owing allegiance to the Patriarchate and tose to Exarchate with division lines often separating family and kin. At
31668-528: Was neither Bulgarian, nor Serbian but could turn out either Bulgarian or Serbian if the respective people were to rule the region. It was established by the end of the 19th century that the majority of the population of central and Southern Macedonia (vilaets of Monastiri and Thessaloniki) were predominantly an ethnic Greek population , while the Northern parts of the region (vilaet of Skopje) were predominantly Slavic. Jews and Ottoman communities were scattered all over. Because of Macedonia's such polyethnic nature,
31850-432: Was of mixed, Bulgarian-Greek origin and had Greek consciousness but had not yet mastered the Greek language. In Europe, the classic non-national states were the multi-ethnic empires such as the Ottoman Empire, ruled by a Sultan and the population belonged to many ethnic groups, which spoke many languages. The idea of nation state was an increasing emphasis during the 19th century, on the ethnic and racial origins of
32032-419: Was one of the most prominent representatives of the first trend with the books Ethnography of Macedonia (1924, written 1919) and partially with The Aromanians (1905). The author described all ethnic groups living in Macedonia, showed empirically the close connection between the western Bulgarian dialects and the Macedonian dialects and defined the latter as Bulgarian. The International Commission constituted by
32214-426: Was suddenly approached by Pausanias of Orestis , one of his seven bodyguards, and was stabbed in his ribs. After Philip was killed, the assassin immediately tried to escape and reach his getaway associates, who were waiting for him with horses at the entrance to Aegae. The assassin was pursued by three of Philip's other bodyguards, and during the chase, his horse tripped on a vine. He was subsequently stabbed to death by
32396-409: Was supported by the native Greeks and by a substantial part of the Slavic and Aromanian populations. Support for the Greeks was much less pronounced in central Macedonia, coming only from a fraction of the local Aromanians and Slavs; in the northern parts of the region it was almost non-existent. The Bulgarian propaganda made a comeback in the 1890s with regard to both education and arms. At the turn of
32578-452: Was the book On Macedonian Matters ( Za Makedonskite Raboti ) published in Sofia in 1903 by Krste Misirkov . In the book Misirkov advocated that the Slavs of Macedonia should take a separate way from the Bulgarians and the Bulgarian language. Misirkov considered that the term "Macedonian" should be used to define the whole Slavic population of Macedonia, obliterating the existing division between Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbians. The adoption of
32760-414: Was the first inhabitant of their land. Upon becoming king, Pelasgus invented huts , sheep-skin coats, and a diet consisting of acorns while governing the land named after him, "Pelasgia". When Arcas became king, Pelasgia was renamed " Arcadia " and its inhabitants (the Pelasgians) were renamed "Arcadians". Pausanias also mentions the Pelasgians as responsible for creating a wooden image of Orpheus in
32942-453: Was the first work that publicly claimed Macedonian to be a separate language. In 1880 he published Slognica Rechovska in Sofia as an attempt at a grammar of the language of the Slavs who lived in Macedonia. Although he had no formal education, Pulevski published several other books, including three dictionaries and a collection of songs from Macedonia, customs, and holidays. The first significant manifestation of ethnic Macedonian nationalism
33124-407: Was thrown or put into Tomb I after this had been looted, and probably between 276/5 and 250 BC. Besides this, the theory that Tomb I belonged to Philip II had previously been shown to be false. More recent research gives further evidence that Tomb II contains the remains of Philip II. The heroon at Vergina in Macedonia (the ancient city of Aegae – Αἰγαί) is thought to have been dedicated to
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