History of Macedonia
The ancient name “Macedonia” was borrowed by the local ruler Bisan in the 9th century. When the Byzantine state collapsed in 1204 after the 4th crusade, neighboring countries began to fight for the Macedonian lands. In 1230, they were included in the Bulgarian kingdom, and later, due to them, the Serbian state began to expand, which, during the time of King Milutin, annexed the northern part of present-day Macedonia with the city of Skopje, and in the 1340s. under King Dushan, the rest of the Macedonian territory. Later, during the time of feudal fragmentation, the brothers Vukashin and Uglesha Mrnyavchevich united against the Turks, but were defeated in the battle of Maritsa in 1371, after which Macedonia was captured by the Turks and remained part of the Ottoman Empire for as long as 500 years. Periodic uprisings against Turkish oppression grew into a con. 17th century into a real people’s war of the Macedonians under the influence of the penetration of Austrian troops into the Balkans. In the 18th century Austro-Turkish wars were fought for the Macedonian lands. From Ser. 19th century a powerful movement began for the transition from Turkish to Macedonian in schools and churches.
After the Berlin Congress of 1878, Turkey began to transform from a run-down Turkish outskirts into a compact region with a Slavic identity. In 1893, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) was created, headed by Gotse Delchev, under whose leadership the Ilinden uprising against the Turks in the Bitola region began on August 2, 1903, culminating in the proclamation of the Krushevo Republic. The uprising after 3 months was brutally suppressed by Turkish troops. The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 contributed to the transformation of the Macedonian people’s liberation movement into a legal political organization.
After the 1st Balkan war against the Turks, the victorious countries could not agree on the partition of Macedonia among themselves, which led to the 2nd Balkan war of 1913. According to the Bucharest peace, South Macedonia, along with the coast of the Aegean Sea, went to Greece, East Macedonia went to Bulgaria, and central and the northern parts of Macedonia remained in Serbia. After the 1st World War, according to the Treaty of Versailles, the division of Macedonia into three parts (Vardara in Serbia, Aegean in Greece and Pirin in Bulgaria) was finally sanctioned. The territory of present-day Macedonia as part of Serbia became part of the Yugoslav Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918.
After the defeat of Yugoslavia in the April war of 1941 against Nazi Germany, the western part of Vardar Macedonia was formally annexed to Albania, but in fact to Italy. The eastern part of Vardar Macedonia and part of southeastern Serbia were occupied by Bulgaria. In September 1941, the regional headquarters of the liberation war against the invaders was created in Vardar Macedonia, which acted jointly with the all-Yugoslav People’s Liberation Army. After World War II, Vardar Macedonia became an independent entity within Yugoslavia – the People’s Republic of Macedonia, where it underwent profound social and economic transformations during the years of socialism.
After the collapse of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Macedonian population voted in a referendum on September 8, 1991 for the independence and sovereignty of Macedonia. Due to the resistance of Greece, which strongly objected to the name of the new state Macedonia, the process of its international recognition was delayed. It was not until 1993 that a compromise was reached and a new state called the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia was admitted to the UN. The first years of the young state were not cloudless internationally. It was subjected to an economic blockade not only from the south (from Greece), but also from the north due to international sanctions against Serbia, and for a long time Bulgaria did not recognize the Macedonian nation and the Macedonian language, considering it a dialect of the Bulgarian language.
Back in November 1990, the first free multi-party elections were held in Macedonia for a new unicameral parliament. In 1991 the Constitution was adopted. The country’s leadership managed to ensure its peaceful development in the face of political upheavals and armed clashes in most of the former Yugoslav republics. In Macedonia, market reforms were carried out similar to those carried out in other post-socialist countries.
The most serious internal political problem in Macedonia was the explosive conflicts between the Albanian minority and the Slavic majority of the population, which intensified after the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and the de facto secession of Kosovo from Serbia. Macedonia then received many Albanian refugees from Kosovo, whose presence had a destabilizing effect on the political and economic situation in the country. Detachments of the UN Armed Forces were deployed on the territory of Macedonia for preventive purposes.
In February 2001, Albanian nationalists, with the support of militants from Kosovo, unleashed armed clashes with the Macedonian police and army. An armed NATO contingent was introduced into the country in order to prevent a large-scale civil war. Under pressure from Western peacekeepers, in May 2001, a government of national unity was formed from representatives of the four largest parties of both national communities.
State structure and political system of Macedonia
According to its state structure, Macedonia is a parliamentary republic with an influential president. A multi-party political system has been operating since 1990. The first president, Kiro Gligorov (1991–99), was replaced by Boris Trajkovski. Check computerminus for political system of Macedonia.
Until 1998, the country was ruled by the government of the socialist Branko Crvenkovski, which was supported by a parliamentary coalition of two parties: the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) and the Albanian Party for Democratic Prosperity (PDP). In 1998, the liberal party All-Macedonian Revolutionary Organization – the Democratic Party of Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE) won the next parliamentary elections, which, in coalition with the Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA), formed a government led by Lubcho Georgievski.
On September 15, 2002, the fourth parliamentary elections were held in independent Macedonia. The center-left bloc “Together for Macedonia”, which won the victory, as part of the SDSM and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which absolutely dominated there, received exactly half of the seats in the Assembly of the Republic (60 out of 120). The coalition that ruled the country before the elections, consisting of VMRO-DPMNE and the Liberal Party, got 33 deputies into parliament, i.е. much less than she received in previous elections.
The third largest parliamentary faction was created by the party of ethnic Albanians – the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), which received 16 seats in parliament, significantly ahead of other Albanian parties, of which the Democratic Party of Albanians received 7, the Party for Democratic Prosperity – 2, the National Democratic Party – 1 mandate. The Socialist Party also managed to get one deputy into parliament. The Social Democrat Nikola Popovski was elected Chairman of the Assembly.
The elections were preceded by a sharp escalation of tension between Macedonians and ethnic Albanians, who make up 1/3 of the country’s population. Despite the fact that in 2001, after the signing of the Ohrid Agreement, which ended the inter-ethnic armed conflict, amendments to the Macedonian Constitution were adopted that expanded the collective political rights of the Albanian community (the Albanian language was given the status of a second official language, Albanians were proportionally involved in law enforcement agencies and other structures of executive power, an amnesty for militants was declared), militant Albanians resumed terrorist acts three weeks before the vote. A wave of terror was unleashed by the so-called. The Albanian National Army (ANA) is a radical group that continues to fight for the territorial division of Macedonia with arms in hand.
After the parliamentary elections, the ethnic confrontation tearing apart Macedonia did not disappear. The new Macedonian government was approved at a special session of parliament on October 31, 2002, after several weeks of negotiations between the coalition parties. The 39-year-old leader of the SDSM, Branko Crvenkovski, headed the cabinet of ministers. The main posts in the new cabinet of ministers were distributed among three parties: the SDSM, the LDP and the Albanian DSI.
