Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

B

Cultural Life

As might be expected in a country with such a diverse population, the cultural life of the FYROM is rich. Folk music draws on Byzantine traditions as well as those associated with the Muslim cultures of the Middle East. Current popular music groups have drawn on this mixed heritage to produce strikingly original music. Many of the Orthodox Christian monasteries and churches are decorated with beautiful frescoes and other works of art. In 1995 a FYROM film, Before the Rain, gained recognition in the United States and was a finalist for an Academy Award in the best foreign-language film category. An internationally renowned gathering of poets is held every year in Struga, on the shores of Lake Ohrid.

IV

Economy

Of the six republics of the former Yugoslavia, Macedonia was one of the least developed economically. In 1991 its gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was about one-third that of Slovenia, the richest of the republics. GDP, which measures the value of goods and services produced in a country, fell by more than 30 percent from 1991 to 1995. The independent republic saw its first economic growth in 1996. Unemployment has been a dominant problem, with the unemployment rate topping 33 percent in 1995 and rising to 40 percent in 1998. In 1998 continued growth and a government program to create jobs began to reduce the number of unemployed workers. In 2005 the GDP was $5.8 billion.

When the FYROM was part of post-World War II Yugoslavia, its economy was controlled by the state, which effectively owned most enterprises. These enterprises did not have to be profitable and often were managed inefficiently. After independence the country had to make the transition from a modified socialist economy to a free-market economy under particularly unfavorable circumstances. In the first half of the 1990s the economy suffered from a trade embargo imposed by Greece. International economic sanctions placed on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (now the separate countries of Serbia and Montenegro) by the United Nations (UN) beginning in 1992 took away an important market, especially for the republic’s agricultural products. In 1994 and 1995 Greece imposed a blockade on the FYROM, deepening the country’s economic slump. An underground gray economy, which comprises businesses that operate outside the tax and social security systems and that disregard government regulations, grew in the FYROM during that period. At the end of the 1990s the gray economy remained large. It was estimated that in 1998 the gray economy accounted for fully one-half of the republic’s GDP.

Nevertheless, the FYROM’s economic transition was successful in some ways. Inflation, which was 1,691 percent in 1992, had dropped to 1.3 percent in mid-1998. Many firms were transferred from government control to private control. Transferring firms to private ownership so that they could operate on the basis of supply and demand was an important step in creating a free-market economy in the FYROM. The pace of such structural change was slow until the late 1990s because the process was dominated by insider privatization; that is, many firms were sold to their former managers. However, laws passed in the late 1990s to discourage insider privatization helped speed structural change. A major increase in foreign investment in FYROM firms in 1998 reinforced the trend.

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Industry, including manufacturing, mining, and construction, was the largest sector of the economy as the Yugoslav period came to an end. Industry employed 40 percent of the republic’s labor force in 1990 and generated 36 percent of the GDP in 1992. During the early 1990s the contribution of industry to the GDP fell while the contribution of services increased. It seemed, at first sight, as if the FYROM were already making a transition to a successful post-industrial society. However, in reality, the structural changes in the economy reflected the collapse of industry rather than any major growth in services. The economic recovery of 1998 was based largely on recovery in the industries that had been developed by the post-World War II Yugoslav regime: iron, steel, and other metals; chemicals; tobacco; textiles; and machinery. In 2005 industry accounted for 29 percent of GDP. Agriculture, forestry, and fishing accounted for 13 percent, and services accounted for 58 percent.

Important agricultural products in the FYROM include wheat; corn, or maize; barley; tobacco; and fruits and vegetables. Dairy farming is also important. Coal is mined and various metals are mined or processed in the FYROM. These include chromium, lead, zinc, and alloys of iron and nickel. Major manufactured goods are food products, textiles and clothing, machinery, chemicals, iron and steel, and tobacco products.

In 1992 the FYROM established a national bank and introduced its own currency, the denar (49.3 denars equal U.S.$1; 2005 average). The banking system that existed just before independence included several commercial banks that operated like those in Western countries. However, many of these banks were insolvent because the government had forced them to loan money to enterprises that could not repay the loans. After independence the national bank launched a program to strengthen the commercial banks. The program yielded good results, dramatically decreasing the share of bad loans from 1992 to 1998. The national bank successfully tamed inflation in the late 1990s.

In 2004 the value of the FYROM’s imports was $2.9 billion, compared to exports worth $1.7 billion. The main exports are basic manufactures (especially iron and steel), machinery and transportation equipment, food and beverages, and tobacco. The chief imports are fuels, chemicals, and machinery and equipment. Principal purchasers of the country’s exports are Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Russia; chief suppliers of imports are Germany, Bulgaria, Italy, and Austria.

Coal is the republic’s main source of energy, with power plants that burn fossil fuels producing 84 percent of the country’s electricity in 2003. Most was generated by a coal-fired power plant at Bitola.

The FYROM’s transportation network is not well developed. At the end of the 1990s international investment was helping to pay for the construction of modern road and rail networks. The chief airports are at Skopje and Ohrid.

The communications system is small. In 2005 there were 262 telephone mainlines for every 1,000 people. For the same number of people there were 206 radios and 280 televisions. The government owns all broadcasting stations. The republic has 6 daily newspapers. The broadcast media and the press are generally free.

V

Government

The constitution of the FYROM was adopted in November 1991 and amended the next month. The amendments state explicitly that the republic has no territorial claims against neighboring states and that it will not interfere in the affairs of other states. These clarifications were made to address concerns raised by the government of Greece, the neighboring region of which is also called Macedonia. The constitution heavily emphasizes formal guarantees of fundamental rights and freedoms. Every citizen 18 years of age or older has the right to vote.

The president of the republic is the head of state. The president is elected by direct popular vote to a term of five years. No person may serve more than two terms as president. The president appoints the prime minister, subject to approval by the parliament. The prime minister and a cabinet of ministers chosen by the prime minister make up the government, which handles day-to-day government operations.

The parliament, or Sobranje, is a single-chamber legislature with 120 members. The members are elected by direct popular vote for terms of four years. The parliament creates laws and develops policy.

The Supreme Court is the highest court. A hierarchy of regular courts exists, at the trial and appeals levels, to handle legal cases. Judges for all these courts are appointed for life by a seven-member Judicial Council, which is appointed by the parliament. The Constitutional Court decides constitutional questions and may annul laws that are inconsistent with the constitution. The Constitutional Court consists of nine judges, elected by the parliament, but the president may nominate two members. Judges of the Constitutional Court serve nine-year terms and may not be reappointed.

For purposes of local government, the country is divided into 34 communes. Each commune has a directly elected assembly.

The main political parties include the former Communist party, now called the Social Democratic Alliance of Macedonia (SDAM), and the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization-Democratic Party of Macedonian National Unity (IMRO-DPMNU). Formerly a strongly nationalist party, the IMRO-DPMNU deemphasized its nationalist rhetoric in 1998 and adopted a more conciliatory position toward ethnic Albanians. The largest ethnic Albanian party is the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), formed in 2002 by former members of the ethnic Albanian insurgent group the National Liberation Army (NLA). Other significant ethnic Albanian parties are the Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA) and the Party of Democratic Prosperity (PDP). The Democratic Alternative (DA) is a multiethnic liberal party.

Males are conscripted for nine months of military service. The FYROM military is very small, with 10,890 active-duty troops in 2004, mainly in the army. The republic has a very small air force and some air defense units. There are also about 7,500 special police officers.

The FYROM is a member of the Partnership for Peace program of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The FYROM is also a member of the United Nations (UN), the Council of Europe, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

VI

History

The history of the territory and people of the FYROM was part of the history of the larger region of Macedonia until the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), when the region was divided among Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria. Macedonia had been a province of the Ottoman Empire for nearly 500 years, but by the early 20th century the declining empire was losing its grip on the region. In the 19th century the empire lost one after another of its Balkan possessions, and by the end of that century only Macedonia, Albania, and Thrace remained under Ottoman control. After the Congress of Berlin (1878) had created a virtually independent Bulgaria, which became completely independent in 1908, and enlarged Greece and Serbia to the borders of Ottoman Macedonia, these three states began competing for the allegiance of the Macedonian population by supporting rival schools, national churches, and armed bands. The people of Macedonia increasingly identified themselves as Greeks or Bulgarians, or as members of a separate (Slavic) Macedonian nation. An armed terrorist group, founded in 1893 and best known as the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), provoked local uprisings. The IMRO hoped that Ottoman reprisals would provoke the great powers of Europe to intervene and liberate Macedonia. The IMRO was itself split into factions, some seeking autonomy as a step toward union with Bulgaria and others seeking an independent Macedonia.

In 1912 Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia agreed to partition Macedonia and, together with Montenegro, attacked and defeated the Ottoman Empire in the First Balkan War. Then the victors quarreled over their shares of Macedonia, prompting the Second Balkan War (1913). In that conflict, Serbia and Greece, joined by Romania and the Ottoman Empire, quickly defeated Bulgaria. Greece acquired southern or Aegean Macedonia, and Serbia took northern or Vardar Macedonia. Bulgaria was left with a small piece of eastern Macedonia, known as Pirin Macedonia, and an enduring grudge nurtured by the conviction that all Macedonian Slavs were actually or potentially Bulgarians. Serbs called their share of Macedonia South Serbia and tried to force the population to accept a Serbian identity. In 1915, during World War I (1914-1918), Bulgarians returned as initially welcome, but later resented, occupiers. At the end of the war, with Bulgaria among the defeated Central Powers, Vardar Macedonia, slightly enlarged at Bulgaria’s expense, was again South Serbia and part of the new Serb-dominated Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, later renamed Yugoslavia. Serbs were sent as colonists. Efforts to give the native population a Serbian identity resumed as did the IMRO’s terrorist activities, which included the assassination of King Aleksandar I of Yugoslavia in 1934.

A

World War II

Germany and its Axis allies, including Bulgaria, invaded and dismembered Yugoslavia in April 1941, during World War II. Vardar Macedonia was again under initially welcome Bulgarian occupation. However, a growing number of Vardar Macedonians began to perceive Bulgarians, like Serbs, as oppressors more than liberators. Many Vardar Macedonians seem to have concluded that they were a separate people, neither Bulgarian nor Serb. By 1944 these people, as well as Communists previously drawn to the Bulgarian rather than Yugoslav party, were increasingly ready to join the Communist-led Partisans, a Yugoslav resistance movement organized and headed by Josip Broz Tito. Tito proclaimed in November 1943 that Macedonians made up a nation and therefore were entitled to an autonomous republic of their own in a postwar Yugoslavia.

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