History of The Republic of Macedonia - Ottoman Period

Ottoman Period

Conquered by the Ottoman army in the first half of the 15th century, the region remained a part of the Ottoman Empire for nearly 500 years, during which it gained a substantial Turkish minority, especially in the religious sense of Muslim; some of those Muslims became so through conversions. During the Ottoman rule, Skopje and Monastir (Bitola) were capitals of separate Ottoman provinces (eyalets). The valley of the river Vardar, which was later to become the central area of the Republic of Macedonia, was ruled by the Ottoman Empire prior to the First Balkan War of 1912, with the exception of the brief period in 1878 when it was liberated from Ottoman rule after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, becoming part of Bulgaria. In 1903, a short-lived Kruševo Republic was proclaimed in the south-western part of present-day Republic of Macedonia by the rebels of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising. Most of the ethnographers and travellers during Ottoman rule classified Slavic speaking people in Macedonia as Bulgarians. Examples include the 17th Century traveller Evliya Celebi in his Seyahatname - Book of Travels to the Ottoman census of Hilmi Pasha in 1904 and later. However, they also remarked that the language spoken in Macedonia had somewhat of a distinctive character — often described as a "Western Bulgarian dialect" as other Bulgarian dialects in modern western Bulgaria. Evidence also exists that certain Macedonian Slavs, particularly those in the northern regions, considered themselves as Serbs el come caca and the Greek Idea predominated in southern Macedonia where it was supported by substantial part of the Slavic population. Although references are made referring to Slavs in Macedonia being identified as Bulgarians, some scholars suggest that ethnicity in Medieval times was more fluid than what we see it to be today, an understanding derived from nineteenth century nationalistic ideals of a homogeneous nation-state.

During the period of Bulgarian National Revival many Bulgarians from Vardar Macedonia supported the struggle for creation of Bulgarian cultural educational and religious institutions, including Bulgarian Exarchate.