Macedonia Greece: Encyclopedia II - Macedonia Greece - Demography

Macedonia Greece - Demography

The demographic history of the region of Macedonia is characterized by uncertainty both about numbers and identification. Hugh Poulton, in his Who Are the Macedonians, notes "assessing population figures is problematic"^[1] for the territory of Greek Macedonia before its re-incorporation into Greece in 1912. Poulton cites two sources, the "detailed"^[1] Todor Simovksi, a Yugoslavian writer, who puts the total population at slightly more than one million people, of which "more than 360,000 were Macedonians and just over 250,000 were Greeks" ^[2]. (It should be noted that by "Macedonians", Simovski is referring to the Slavic-speaking ethnic group, which self-identifies as ethnic Macedonian, and not to ethnic Greeks residing in Macedonia, who also refer to themselves as Macedonians but in a strictly regional sense). Poulton also cites a Greek writer, Dimitri Nicolaidis, who gives the percentags of "forty-four percent Greek and nine percent Slav"^[3]. Complicating the issue is the fact that the Slav-speaking population's allegiance was claimed by Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian nationalists. The area's remaining population was principally composed of Albanians, Jews, Roma, Turks and Vlachs.

During the first half of the 20th century, major demographic shifts took place which resulted in the region's population becoming overwhelmingly ethnic Greek. Many of the region's Slavs moved north to Bulgaria and the Serbian-ruled territory that is now the Republic of Macedonia. After the Balkan wars the first population exchange occurred when large numbers of ethnic Greeks were expelled from Bulgaria to the region, and large numbers of Slavs were expelled north. Hundreds of thousands of Pontic Greeks from Turkey were resettled in the region and most Macedonian Turks and other Muslims (of Albanian, Greek, Roma, Slavic and Vlach ethnicity) travelled the opposite way following the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. A large number of Slavic and Turkish Macedonian place names and Slavic personal surnames were renamed during this period. On the other sides of the Greek borders the same process of replacing replacing Greek and Turkish place names occurred.

The population was badly affected by the Second World War, during which the large Jewish population of Thessaloniki was almost entirely exterminated by Nazi Germany. Nazi-aligned Bulgaria's occupation forces also deported all Jews in their occupation zone in Greece. Further heavy fighting affected the region during the Greek Civil War which, combined with post-war poverty, drove many inhabitants of rural Macedonia to migrate either to the towns and cities or to emigrate abroad. Even today, many parts of Macedonia are fairly sparsely inhabited.

Greek is by far the most widely spoken language in Macedonia. There are also some smaller linguistic communities, including speakers of the Slavic Macedonian, Armenian, Aromanian, Arvanitic, Ladino, Meglenitic, Romany, and Bulgarian languages. A number of mostly non-native Albanians also live in the region, having immigrated since the collapse of communism in Albania in 1992.

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, when 41,017 speakers of the Slavic language were recorded. The Greek government's position is that the native-born minorities are in fact Greeks who happen to speak other languages. This has been a cause of controversy for some time, particularly regarding the Slavic Macedonians, who regard themselves as culturally and linguistically different from the Greek majority. The issue is a sensitive one for many Greeks, and the Greek government's treatment of its minority populations has attracted criticism from international human rights groups ^[4]. However, the Slavic Macedonians have been represented by their own political party, the "rainbow party" (Ουράνιο Τόξο in Greek), for quite a few years now. Its percentage in the 2004 European Parliament election was 0.1% (with 6176 votes)[5].

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Demography", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki