History of The Macedonian Language - Second World War

Second World War

See also: Balkans Campaign (World War II) and National Liberation War of Macedonia

During the second World War, part of the Macedonia region was liberated by the Bulgarians, who were allied with the Axis, at the time. The Bulgarian language was introduced into schools and the church. The Bulgarians were initially welcomed as "liberators" from Serbian domination, although as a result of excessive assimilation policies, reminiscent of both the Serbs and the Greeks before them, they were quickly seen as "conquerors".

There were a number of groups fighting the Bulgarian occupying force, some advocating independence and others union with Bulgaria, but the eventual outcome was that part of Macedonia region was incorporated into the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as a constituent Socialist Republic with the Macedonian language holding official status within both the Federation and Republic. The present orthography was established in 1945 and in the next ten years the literary language was standardised. The codifiers took Misirkov’s choice of a west-central dialectal base.