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Macedonia (Greece)
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Macedonia (; , Makedonía, ) is a geographical and historical region of Greece in southeastern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region. Together with the regions of Thrace it is often referred to informally as northern Greece. It is located at coordinates .
Its territory covers most of the region of ancient Macedon and most of the Kingdom of Macedon, famously ruled by Alexander the Great, who is the most famous Greek from the region of Macedonia.
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Encyclopedia
Macedonia (; , Makedonía, ) is a geographical and historical region of Greece in southeastern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region. Together with the regions of Thrace it is often referred to informally as northern Greece. It is located at coordinates .
Its territory covers most of the region of ancient Macedon and most of the Kingdom of Macedon, famously ruled by Alexander the Great, who is the most famous Greek from the region of Macedonia. The name "Macedonia" was later applied to identify various administrative areas in the Roman and Byzantine Empires with widely differing borders. Under the Ottomans, the name disappeared altogether. By the mid 19th century, the name re-emerged informaly, defining a distinct geographical, rather than political, region in the southern Balkans. At the end of the Ottoman Empire most of the region known as Rumelia or Turkey in Europe was divided by the Treaty of Bucharest of 1913, following the Ottoman defeat in the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913. Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Albania each took control of portions of the territory, with Greece obtaining the largest portion.
History
Ancient History
The history of Macedonia streches from ancient to modern Greece. According to Herodotus, the Greek history of Macedonia began with the Makednoi tribe, among the first to use the name Hellenes, migrating to the region from Histiaeotis in the south. There they lived near non-Greek tribes like the Bryges, who would later leave Macedonia for Asia Minor, where they became known as Phrygians. Macedonia was named after the Makednoi. Accounts of other toponyms such as Emathia are attested to have been in use before that.
A branch of Macedonians invaded Southern Greece, where, upon reaching Peloponnese were renamed to Dorians triggering the accounts of the Dorian invasion. For centuries the Macedonian tribes were organized in independent kingdoms, in what is now Central Macedonia, and their role in Greek politics was minimal. The rest of the region was inhabited by various Thracian and Illyrian tribes as well as mostly coastal colonies of other Greek states such as Amphipolis, Olynthos, Potidea, Stageira and many others. During the late 6th and early 5th century BC, the region was under Persian rule until the destruction of Xerxes at Plataea. In the next century, Macedonia became the theatre of many military actions regarding the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians and saw incursions of Thracians and Illyrians, as attested by Thucidydes. The kingdom of Macedon, was reorganised by Philip II and achieved Greek hegemony during his years. With Philip's exploits begins the Greek history of the remainder of the nowadays Greek Province of Macedonia. After his assassination, his son Alexander succeeded to the throne of Macedon and, retaining the office of "General of Greece", he became one of the best known persona this land ever gave birth to. Macedonia remained an important and powerful kingdom until it was annexed by the Romans in 148 BC. The region remained under Roman rule for centuries, a part of many provinces with various names.
Medieval history
Under Byzantine rule, the territory of the Greek province of Macedonia was divided as part of various administrative regions, called Themata. Confusion sometimes occurs when referring to the Theme of Macedonia, which was in fact located in Thrace. Following the Slavic incursions of the 7th century, for long only the coastal areas remained under effective Byzantine control, while most of the hinterland was disputed between Byzantium and Bulgaria. The familiarity with the strong Slavic element in the area led two brothers from Thessaloniki, Saints Cyril and Methodius, to be chosen to convert the Slavs to Christianity. Following the campaigns of Basil II, all of Macedonia returned to the Byzantine state. Following the Fourth Crusade 1203-1204, a short-lived Crusader realm, the Kingdom of Thessalonica, was established in the region, but it was subdued by the Greek Despotate of Epirus in 1224. Returning to the restored Byzantine Empire shortly thereafter, the area remained in Byzantine hands until the 1340s, when all of Macedonia (except Thessaloniki) was conquered by the Serbian ruler Stefan Dusan. Divided between Serbia and Bulgaria after Dusan's death, the region fell quickly to the advancing Ottomans, with Thessaloniki alone holding out until 1387. After a brief Byzantine interval in 1403-1430, the city and its immediate area returned to the Ottomans, who would keep it for the next centuries.
Ottoman Rule
Modern history
Greece gained the region from the Ottoman Empire, after the Second Balkan War with the Treaty of Bucharest (1913).
Etymology
There are a number of theories for the etymology of the name Macedonia:
- According to ancient Greek mythology, Makednos or Macedon was the name of the first phylarch (chief) of the Makednoí tribe that initially settled western, southern and central Macedonia and founded the kingdom of Macedon.
- According to Herodotus, both the Dorians and Macedonians descended from the Makednoi tribe. The name of the latter two probably derives from the Doric noun , makos (Attic and modern Greek , mákros and , mekos), meaning "length", and the adjective , makednós, meaning "tall, taper", since both the Macedonians (Makedónes) and their Makednoi tribal ancestors were regarded as tall people. The adjective is used by Homer in Odyssey (7.105f), to describe a tall poplar tree, and by Aristophanes in his comedy the Birds, to describe a wall built around their imaginary city.
- An unattested hypothesis suggests that the name Makedónes may mean "highlanders", from a hypothetical Macedonian bahuvrihi * *maki-kedónes "of the high earth". However, there is serious argumentation against this hypothesis.
- The district of Macedonia took its name from Macedon, according to Hesiod a son of Zeus and Thyia, Deucalion's daughter, "who conceived and bore to Zeus, who delights in the thunderbolt, two sons, Magnes and Macedon, rejoicing in horses, who dwell round about Pieria and Olympus". Hesiod makes Magnes and Macedon brothers, cousins of Graecus, sons of Zeus and grandchildren of Deucalion, the progenitor of all Greeks. Magnes fathered the Magnesians who settled south of Mt. Olympus in Thessaly. Macedon settled north of Mt. Olympus in Macedonia and fathered the Macedonians. Hellanicus of Lesbos in c. 500 BCE, a Greek historian and contemporary of Herodotus, gives a variant of Hesiod's account and supports that Macedon was the son of Aeolus and thus a grandson to Deucalion.
Local government
Macedonia is divided into three peripheries comprising thirteen prefectures or nomoi. The prefectures are further divided into demoi (municipalities) or koinotetes (roughly equivalent to British or Australian shires). The geographical region of Macedonia also includes the male-only autonomous monastic republic of Mount Athos, but this is not part of the Macedonia precincts. Indeed, Mount Athos lies outside the jurisdiction of most Greek and European laws. Due to the whole mountain's monastic status, it is inaccessible to women.
They are overseen by the national government's Ministry of Macedonia and Thrace. Macedonia borders the neighboring peripheries of Thessaly, Thrace and Epirus. The three Macedonian peripheries and their prefectures are:
| Map of Macedonia | Number | Periphery | Capital | Area | Population |
|---|
| | Total | West Macedonia | Kozani | 9,451 km˛ | 301,522 | | 1 | Kastoria Prefecture | Kastoria | 1,720 km˛ | 53,483 | | 2 | Florina Prefecture | Florina | 1,924 km˛ | 54,768 | | 3 | Kozani Prefecture | Kozani | 3,516 km˛ | 155,324 | | 4 | Grevena Prefecture | Grevena | 2,291 km˛ | 37,947 | | Total | Central Macedonia | Thessaloniki | 18,811 km˛ | 1,871,952 | | 5 | Pella Prefecture | Edessa | 2,506 km˛ | 145,797 | | 6 | Imathia Prefecture | Veria | 1,701 km˛ | 143,618 | | 7 | Pieria Prefecture | Katerini | 1,516 km˛ | 129,846 | | 8 | Kilkis Prefecture | Kilkis | 2,519 km˛ | 89,056 | | 9 | Thessaloniki Prefecture | Thessaloniki | 3,683 km˛ | 1,057,825 | | 10 | Chalkidiki Prefecture | Polygyros | 2,918 km˛ | 104,894 | | 11 | Serres Prefecture | Serres | 3.968 km˛ | 200,916 | | Total | East Macedonia | Kavala | 5,579 km˛ | 249,029 | | 12 | Drama Prefecture | Drama | 3,468 km˛ | 103,975 | | 13 | Kavala Prefecture | Kavala | 2,111 km˛ | 145,054 | | - | Mount Athos (Autonomous) | Karyes | 336 km˛ | 2,262 | | Total | Macedonia | Thessaloniki | 34,177 km˛ | |
Geography
Macedonia covers an area of some . High ground makes up much of the region with mountains reaching up to ; extensive fertile plains lie along the Aegean Sea coast. Macedonia is traversed by the valleys of the Aliakmon, Axios, Nestos, and Strymonas rivers, all of which drain into the Aegean. It borders the countries of Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Bulgaria, and the Greek regions of Epirus, Thessaly and Thrace. The offshore island of Thasos is within the precincts of Macedonia; together with Samothrace, they belong to the region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace (??at????? ?a?ed???a ?a? T????).
The region has a population of 2,625,681 and its capital and largest city is Thessaloniki, with a city population of around 363,987, and a metropolitan area of around 1 million people.
Since World War II, Greek Macedonia is sometimes called Aegean Macedonia, a term introduced by Tito in 1945 to lay claim on Greek Macedonia and in the build up to the Greek civil war. Although this term is now used mostly by Macedonian Slavs and occasionally in historical contexts, it is strongly disliked by many Greeks (particularly Macedonians), who remember that after WWII, Tito's communist Yugoslavia began to remove the 'Greek' qualifying term in order to justify territorial claims against Greek Macedonia.
The capital
Thessaloniki, Thessalonica or Salonica is the capital of the Greek region of Macedonia and the second-largest city of Greece. It is also the capital of the Thessaloniki prefecture and the capital of the EU region (or, synonymously, Greek periphery) of Central Macedonia. Today's population of the city's metropolitan area is around 1,000,000.
The city was founded circa 315 BC by Cassander, the King of Macedon (?a?ed??), on or near the site of the ancient town of Therma and twenty six other local villages. He named it after his wife Thessalonica, the sister of Alexander the Great. She gained her name from her father, Philip II of Macedon, to commemorate her birth on the day of his gaining a victory (Gr. Nike) over the Phocians, who were defeated with the help of Thessalian horsemen, the best in Greece at that time. Thessaloniki means the "victory of Thessalians" (where Thessalians derives from Thessaly which means thesi alos, i.e. "a land that was sea").
The Apostle Paul landed at Thessaloníki (after Kavala and before Veria) on his second voyage to Europe (Acts, xvi. 11), and in Byzantine times the city was called symbasileousa 's?µßas??e???sa' (vice-capital) in Greek. Byzantine Greek brothers Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius were born in Thessaloníki.
Thessaloníki was part of the Ottoman Empire from 1430 to 1912. Thessaloniki was the main "prize" of the First Balkan War, as a result of which it was united with Greece on October 26 1912. This date has an immense importance for the city as, in addition to the aforementioned historic event of the unification, it also marks the nameday of Saint Demetrius, its patron Saint. Thessaloniki is a thriving, vibrant city and its commercial port is of a strategic importance for Greece. It is a major economic, industrial, commercial and cultural center as well as a transportation hub in southeastern Europe. The city hosts a large student population and it is widely renowned for its large number of monuments of Byzantine architecture as well as its eminent nightlife.
Climate
The climate of Macedonia can be categorised into two types that influence well-defined regions of its territory. The two distinct types are the Alpine and the Temperate/Mediterranean types. The Alpine type is dominant mainly in the mountainous areas of Western Macedonia and the Temperate/Mediterranean type affects Central Macedonia and East Macedonia and Thrace; it features cold, damp winters and hot, dry summers. The lowest temperature officially measured in Greece was recorded at Ptolemaida, in Western Macedonia, and was .
Economy and Transport
Despite its rugged terrain, Macedonia possesses some of the richest farmland in Greece in the plain of Drama and the valleys of the Strimon and Axios. A wide variety of foodstuffs and cash crops are grown, including rice, wheat, beans, olives, cotton, tobacco, fruit, grapes, wine and other alcoholic beverages. Food processing and textile weaving constitute the principal manufacturing industries. Tourism is a major industry along the coast, particularly in the Chalcidice peninsula, the island of Thasos and the northern approaches to Mount Olympus. Many tourists originate from Greece's immediate neighbors.
Thessaloniki is a major port city and industrial center; Kavala is the other harbor of Macedonia. Apart from the principal airport at Thessaloniki (Makedonia Airport), airports also exist in Kavala (M.Alexandros Airport), Kozani (Filippos Airport), and Kastoria (Aristotelis Airport). The "Via Egnatia" motorway crosses the full distance of Macedonia, linking its main cities.
Culture
Macedonian cuisine
Macedonian music
Demographics
The inhabitants are overwhelmingly ethnic Greeks and most are Greek Orthodox Christians. From the Middle Ages to the early 20th century, the ethnic composition of the region of Macedonia is characterized by uncertainty both about numbers and identification. The 1904 Ottoman census of Hilmi Pasha recorded 373,227 Greeks and 204,317 Bulgarians in the vilayet of Selânik (Thessaloniki) alone, while it makes no mention of a Macedonian Slav ethnicity (which at the time was regarded as Bulgarian). According to the same census, Greeks were also dominant in the vilayet of Manastir (Bitola), counting 261,283 Greeks and 178,412 Bulgarians. Hugh Poulton, in his Who Are the Macedonians, notes that "assessing population figures is problematic" for the territory of Greek Macedonia before its incorporation into the Greek state in 1913. The area's remaining population was principally composed of Ottoman Turks and also some Jews, and at much smaller numbers of Roma, Albanians and Vlachs.
During the first half of the twentieth century, major demographic shifts took place, which resulted in the region's population becoming overwhelmingly ethnic Greek. In 1919, Bulgaria and Greece signed the Treaty of Neuilly, which called for an exchange of populations between the two countries. According to the treaty, Bulgaria was considered to be the parent state of all ethnic Slavs living in Greece. Most ethnic Greeks from Bulgaria were resettled in Greek Macedonia; most Slavs were resettled in Bulgaria but a number, remained, most of them by changing or adapting their surnames and declaring themselves to be Greek so as to be exempt from the exchange. In 1923 Greece and Turkey signed the Treaty of Lausanne, and 600,000 Greek-speaking refugees from Anatolia were resettled in the region replacing Macedonian Turks and other Muslims (of Albanian, Greek, Roma, Slavic and Vlach ethnicity) under similar terms.
Macedonian cities during Ottoman rule were often known by multiple names (Greek, Slavic or Turkish by the respective populations). After the partition of Ottoman Europe, cities in Greece became officially known only by their Greek names, and cities in Bulgaria and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia became likewise officially known only in the languages of their respective states. After the population exchanges, many locations were renamed to the languages of their new occupants.
!Year
!Greeks
!Bulgarians
!Muslims
!Others
!Total
|-
|1926 League of nations data
| align="center" |88.8%
(1,341,000)
| align="center" |5.1%
(77,000)
| align="center" |0.1%
(2,000)
| align="center" |6.0%
(91,000)
|1,511,000
|-
|}
The population was badly affected by the Second World War through starvation, executions, massacres and deportations. Nazi-aligned Bulgarian occupation forces persecuted the local Greek population and settled Bulgarian colonists in their occupation zone in eastern Macedonia and western Thrace, deporting all Jews from the region. Total civilian deaths in Macedonia are estimated at over 400,000, including 55,000 Greek Jews. Further heavy fighting affected the region during the Greek Civil War which, combined with post-war poverty, drove many inhabitants of rural Macedonia to emigrate either to the towns and cities, or abroad. Even today, many parts of Macedonia are fairly sparsely inhabited.
Greek is by far the most widely spoken and the only official language of public life and education in Macedonia. There are also some smaller linguistic communities, including speakers of Macedonian Greek, Pontian Greek, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, Arvanitic, Armenian, Slavic, Turkish, Russian, Ladino and Romani.
Since the fall of communism throughout Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a large number of economic refugees and immigrants from Greece's neighboring countries, Albania, Bulgaria, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Romania and Serbia, as well as from more distant countries such as Russia, the Ukraine, Armenia and Georgia, have arrived in Greece (including Macedonia) to seek employment.
The exact size of the minority groups of Macedonia is unclear, as Greece has not conducted a census on the question of mother tongue since 1951. The main minority groups in Macedonia are:
- Vlachs (Aromanians and Megleno-Romanians), who largely identify as Greeks and belong to the Greek Orthodox Church. In the 1951 census they numbered 39,855 in all Greece (the number in Macedonia proper is unknown).
- Slavophones, who largely identify as Greeks and belong to the Greek Orthodox Church. In the 1951 census they numbered 41,017 in all Greece, mostly in Western Macedonia. The linguistic classification of the dialects spoken by these people oscillates from Bulgarian to Macedonian Slavic depending on location, although the people themselves call their language Slavic. This group has received a lot of attention in recent years due to claims that these people are in fact a Slavic ethnic Macedonian minority in Greece. A political party promoting the concept and rights of what they describe as the "Macedonian minority in Greece" — the Rainbow (??????? ????) - was founded in September 1998, and received 2,955 votes in Macedonia in the latest (2004) elections. Similarly, a pro-Bulgarian political party, known as Bulgarian Human Rights in Macedonia (?????a???? ?????p??a ???a??µata st? ?a?ed???a) was established in June 2000, promoting the concept and rights of what they describe as the "Bulgarian minority in Greece". This party has yet to participate in elections.
Other minority groups include Arvanites (who like the Vlachs identify ethnically as Greeks), Jews (Sephardim and Romaniotes), Armenians and Roma.
Regional identity
Macedonians is the term by which ethnic Greeks originating from the region are known. The Macedonians have a strong regional identity, manifested both in Greece and by emigrant groups in the Greek diaspora. This sense of identity has been highlighted in the context of the Macedonian naming dispute after the Breakup of Yugoslavia, in which Greece objects to its northern neighbour calling itself the "Republic of Macedonia", since explicit self-identification as Macedonian is a matter of national pride for many Greeks. A characteristic expression of this attitude could be seen when Greek newspapers reported in big headlines a declaration by Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis at a meeting of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg in January 2007, saying that "I myself am a Macedonian, and another two and a half million Greeks are Macedonians."
Population of largest towns
| Towns/Cities | Greek Name | Population |
|---|
| 01. Thessaloniki (municipality) | ??µ?? Tessa??????? | 363,987 | | 02. Kavala | ?aß??a | 63,293 | | 03. Katerini | ?ate???? | 56,434 | | 04. Serres | S???e? | 56,145 | | 05. Drama | ???µa | 55,632 | | 06. Kozani | ?????? | 47,451 | | 07. Veria | ?????a | 47,411 | | 08. Ptolemaida | ?t??eµa?da | 35,539 | | 09. Giannitsa | G?a???ts? | 26,296 | | 10. Kilkis | ?????? | 24,812 | | 11. Naoussa | ????sa | 22,288 | | 12. Aridaia | ???da?a | 20,213 | | 13. Alexandria | ??e???d?e?a | 19,283 | | 14. Edessa | ?dessa | 18,253 | | 15. Nea Moudania | ??a ???da??? | 17,032 | | 16. Florina | F?????a | 16,771 | | 17. Kastoria | ?ast???? | 16,218 | | 18. Grevena | G?eße?? | 15,481 | | 19. Polygyros | ????????? | 10,721 | | 20. Skydra | S??d?a | 5,081 |
See also
External links
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