Aegean Macedonia - Post-WWII

Post-WWII

By 1950, the term 'Aegean Macedonians' had been officially adopted by the Macedonian refugees in Skopje who began publishing the newspaper The Voice of the Aegeans; it is later found amongst diaspora communities.

In Greece, the Slav Macedonians, a tiny minority of less than 2% of the population, seemed relieved to be acknowledged as Slavomacedonians. A native of the region, former exile, teacher and local historian, Pavlos Koufis, says in Laografika Florinas kai Kastorias (Folklore of Florina and Kastoria), that,

“ the KKE (Communist Party of Greece)recognised that the Slavophone population was ethnic minority of Slavomacedonians]. This was a term, which the inhabitants of the region accepted with relief. Slavomacedonians = Slavs+Macedoninas. The first section of the term determined their origin and classified them in the great family of the Slavic peoples.”

The name "Aegean Macedonia" is considered by the vast majority of Greeks as, at best, ambiguous. On the one hand it contains a reference to a geographical area which, since Homeric times, is historically associated with the Greeks (the Aegean), but, as expressed above, there is also the experience that it is used by irredentist organizations in the Republic of Macedonia and beyond who support a United Macedonia, contrary to the desires of the people living in the area.

Writing in 1953, Lazar Mojsov seems surprised that the Greeks find the term "Aegean Macedonia" insulting, and uses it frequently, noting that "...Politis (former Greek minister of external affairs) didn't miss the opportunity to attack even the very term "Aegean Macedonia", stating that it was "coined by the communist propagandists".

The term is currently used by some scholars, mostly contextualised, along with the sister terms Vardar Macedonia (describing the part of Macedonia in which the Republic of Macedonia inhabits) and Pirin Macedonia (describing the part of Macedonia in which the Blagoevgrad province of Bulgaria inhabits). The term is used more frequently by Ethnic Macedonians and can have irredentist connotations.