Thousands have taken to the streets of the Macedonian capital of Skopje to protest a possible name change to country. Macedonia's young government has said it wants to resolve its naming dispute with neighboring Greece.
Image: Reuters/O. Teofilovski
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Thousands of people rallied in the Macedonian capital of Skopje on Sunday, waving flags and chanting "We are Macedonians" to demand that the government halt talks with Greece over the decades-long naming dispute.
Protesters gathered under the statue of Hellenic ruler Alexander the Great in Skopje's main town square as part of the "We are the Macedonia" demonstration.
"We are here because questions about the name, the identity, the constitution (and) language are issues over which we must adopt a (strong) position," rally organizer Evica Stojanova-Kamberova told the crowd.
Shape-shifting Macedonia
The naming dispute between Greece and North Macedonia has roots that go back to antiquity. The country's borders have moved about a bit over time, while ethnic changes have also made a mark.
Image: Robert Atanasovski/AFP/Getty Images
Present day
As well as Greece and North Macedonia, the geographic region of Macedonia extends into Albania, Bulgaria and Serbia as well as small areas of Kosovo (which you can't quite see here).
Greek origins
The ancient kingdom of Macedonia – or Macedon – was a relatively small part of the present day Greek province of Macedonia. It first expanded under King Perdiccas I, then widened to take in other areas.
A Roman province
After the fall of the Greek Empire, the Romans – who admired Alexander – used the old name Macedonia for the province encompassing much of northern Greece and the area north of it – including much of the modern-day North Macedonia.
A shift to the east
With the breakup of the Roman Empire into East and West, this region was overrun by the Slavic invasions. An entirely new province far to the east, including part of Thrace in modern-day Turkey, was named Macedonia by the Byzantine Empress Irene of Athens.
Ottoman roots for current concept
The geographic region known as Macedonia today roughly equates to the part of the Ottoman Empire known as Ottoman Vardar Macedonia. It included Greek and Slavic areas and was split into three administrative units, but the concept of Macedonia persisted. This remained the case for centuries and so this concept – of what Macedonia is – has stuck.
Let's put that all together...
...and there's certainly a fair bit of overlap — and room for confusion.
Small matter of empire
Of course, Macedonia's King Alexander the Great's realm stretched all the way to India — but it would be a bit of a stretch to call that Macedonia
As if it weren’t complicated enough, there’s another meaning of the word Macedonia. In Greece and many Latin-language-speaking countries, it’s also a fruit salad. The name is thought to have ben popularized at the end of the 18th century, referring to either the ethnic diversity of Alexander's vast empire or the ethnic mix of Ottoman Macedonia.
Greece objects that its neighbor's constitutional name, simply Macedonia, arguing that it implies a territorial claim to its own northern region of the same name.
After splitting from the former Yugoslavia in 1991, Macedonia was admitted into the United Nations two years later under the name Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). Protesters have also demanded that the UN recognize the country under its constitutional name.
Announcing plans to seek a resolution with Greece, Zaev said he would accept a "geographical qualifier" as a compromise in the talks with Greece — such as "Vardar," "upper," or "north." However, it insisted that any compromise must "respect the dignity" of the Macedonian people.
