History of The Macedonians (ethnic Group) - Middle Ages - Ottoman Empire, Turkification and Islamization

Ottoman Empire, Turkification and Islamization

This expansion of medieval states on the Balkan Peninsula was discontinued by the occupation of the Ottoman Empire in the 14th century. The region of Macedonia remained part of the Ottoman Empire for the next 500 years, i.e. until 1912. Islamization means the process of a society's conversion to the religion of Islam, or a neologism meaning an increase in observance by an already Muslim society. Turkification is a cultural change in which someone who is not a Turk becomes one, voluntarily or by force. Both terms can be used in contexts of connection with various Slavic people in Macedonia (Pomaks, Torbesh and Gorani), which converted to Islam during the Ottoman rule. Overall, the large majority of local Bulgarians remained Christian.

During the rule of the Ottomans, the locals organized a number of uprisings: Mariovo uprising (1564), Karposh's Rebellion (1689), Kresna-Razlog Uprising(1878) etc. According to the Preliminary Treaty of San Stefano between Russia and the Ottoman Empire signed at the end of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78), Macedonia was granted to the new autonomous self-governing Principality of Bulgaria. However, the Great Powers, particularly England and Austria grew alarmed with what they saw as extension of Russian power, since Bulgaria was a fellow Slavic Orthodox country that could be easily swayed by Russia. Additionally, they feared that a too rapid collapse of Ottoman rule could create a dangerous power vacuum. Also, Serbia and Greece held some resentment at the establishment of what they saw as a Greater Bulgaria, and felt deprived from the spoils of Ottoman decline.

This prompted the Great Powers to obtain a revision of this treaty. The subsequent Congress of Berlin a few months later was a meeting of the European Great Powers' which revised the Treaty of San Stefano. Although Greece and Serbia succeeded in becoming independent Kingdoms, autonomous from Turkey. Bulgaria's lost much of the territory it had gained, losing Thrace and Macedonia back to the Turks. Despite calls for liberation and even the founding of a united Macedonian principality (i.e., Pan-Macedonian), run by a Christian governor, the pleas of the people fell on deaf ears. These events all conspired to create tensions which would spill over into war. The issue of irredentism and nationalism gained great prominence after the creation of Greater Bulgaria and Turkish collapse following the 1878 Treaty of San Stefano. In the first half of 20th century, control over Macedonia was a key point of contention between Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia.

The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) was founded in 1893 in Ottoman Thessaloniki by a "small band of anti-Ottoman Macedono-Bulgarian revolutionaries". "They considered Macedonia an indivisible territory and all of its inhabitants "Macedonians", no matter their religion or ethnicity". The organisation was secret revolutionary society with aim to make Macedonia an autonomous state but that later became an agent serving Bulgarian interests in Balkan politics. However, the results of the Balkan Wars were not favourable for the members of the IMRO, splitting Macedonia into three parts. The Greek part was heavily Hellenized by re-settlement of Greeks from other provinces, as well as through a governmental policy of linguistic and cultural Hellenization of Slav speakers. The Macedonians who lived in the small portion allocated to Bulgaria continued to be considered as Bulgarians. Moreover, Bulgarians in Bulgaria believed that most of the population of Macedonia was Bulgarian. The remaining portion allocated to Serbia, renamed the Vardar Banovina following King Alexander Karadjordjevic's reorganization of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, was subject to a policy of Serbianisation, whereby the Macedonian language was deliberately distanced from Bulgarian, and Bulgarian Exarchate authorities were removed. Simultaneously after the Balkan Wars, a new entity began to arise among the Slavic-speaking population — an ethnic Macedonian one.

Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia all wished to claim Macedonia, as a key strategic part of their newly formed kingdoms. Throughout the 19th century, each kingdom tried to claim Macedonia as its own. This was done through the media of church and education, particularly between Greece and Bulgaria. Through the advancement of Greek or Bulgarian language, and provision of local priests either from the Bulgarian Exarchate or Orthodox Church of Constantinople, an entire village would be claimed to be 'Greek', while its neighbour would be 'Bulgarian'. This ad hoc arrangement did not follow any geographic or ethnic correlates, and occurred at the expense of the development of a local, Macedonian identity, and often involved harassment of peoples in order to profess loyalty to Greece or Bulgaria, and abdicate profession of any independent identity.