The history of Macedonians has been shaped by population shifts and political developments in the Balkans, especially within the region of Macedonia. The ideas of separate Macedonian identity grew in significance after the World War I, both in Vardar Macedonia and among the left-leaning diaspora in Bulgaria, and were endorsed by the Comintern in 1934. During the World War II, these ideas were supported by the Macedonian Partisans, but the decisive point in the ethnogenesis of this South Slavic people was the creation of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia as a new state within the framework of Yugoslavia.

Ancient period

The region of present-day North Macedonia has been inhabited since Paleolithic times. It occupies most of the ancient kingdom of Paeonia. The Paeonians founded several princedoms, which coalesced into a kingdom in the central and upper reaches of the Vardar and Struma rivers, centered at Bylazora. In 356 BC Paeonia became subject to Philip II. The kingdom of Dardania, inhabited by the Dardani, included Scupi, near modern Skopje. Pelagonia and Derriopos, which became part of the kingdom of Macedon in the mid 4th century BC, corresponded roughly to what is now Pelagonia Statistical Region.

The Roman province of Macedonia was officially established in 146 BC after the Fourth Macedonian War. Pausanias described that Paeon, the eponymous ancestor of the Paionians, was a brother of Epeius and Aetolus, the eponymous ancestors of the Epeians of Elis and the Aetolians respectively.Pausanias, 5.1.5; Smith "Paeon" 3. Anson writes that "this notice from Pausanias may suggest that at least by the second century AD the Paeonians were seen as part of the Greek community". By the 4th century AD the area of present-day North Macedonia had become Hellenized or Romanized.

Middle Ages During most of Late Antiquity and the early Middles ages, the Diocese of Macedonia had been a province of the Byzantine Empire. In the 6th century AD, most of North Macedonia was part of Macedonia Salutaris with Stobi as its capital.

Arrival and Settlement of the Slavs

The Slavic tribes invaded the Balkan Peninsula in the 5th, 6th, and 7th centuries CE, settling in the Danube river basin and the region of Macedonia, and encountering the Byzantine population who lived in the region. According to Procopius, the first attack on Byzantium took place in 523 and later in 617-619 by the Draguvites and Sagudates. Initially, the Slavic tribes retained independent rule with their own political structure. These units were referred to as Sclaviniae or Zhupas.

Successive Byzantine emperors tried to directly incorporate the Slavs of the region of Macedonia into the socio-economic system of the Byzantine state, with varied success. Emperors Constans II (656) and Justinian II (686) had to resort to military expeditions and forced re-settlement of large numbers of Slavs to Anatolia, forcing them to pay tribute and supply military aid to the empire.

Arrival of Kuber and the Sermesianoi

Historical records document that in 682AD - 685AD a Bulgar ruler called Kuber and his subjects settled in the region of Keramisian plain, centred on the city of Bitola in that time part of the Byzantine Empire."Acta Sancti Demetrii", V 195-207, Гръцки извори за българската история, 3, стр. 159-166 Kuber was a chief, who was vassaled to the Avar Khagan. However, whilst he was certainly a Bulgar, he was made chief of a settlement consisting of the descendants of various peoples who had been subjugated by the Avars and actively re-settled in Sirmium, nearer to the Khanate's centre.Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages. Florin Curtin. 2006. Cambridge Medieval Textbooks They may have consisted of Bulgars, Byzantine soldiers and mercenaries, Slavs and even Germanic peoples such as Gepids and Franks.The Balkans: From Constantinople to Communism. Dennis Hupchik They referred to themselves as Sermesianoi, and at 680 AD they rebelled against the Avars and departed from Sirmium towards the Byzantine Empire.Средновековни градови и тврдини во Македонија,(Скопје, Македонска цивилизација, 1996) Иван Микулчик, стр. 71. There is no more information of Kuber's life or the Sermesianoi. They had close contacts and may have merged with the Slavic tribe called Dragoviti, who were already established in the area.Southeastern Europe in Middle Ages Some sources suggest Kuber was the brother of Khan Asparuh, who founded the Danubian Bulgarian state in 681, known as First Bulgarian Empire in southeastern Europe. According to Bulgarian historians in the following decades, these people launched campaigns against the Byzantine city of Salonica and established contacts with Danubian Bulgaria.Веселин Бешевлиев, "Първобългарски надписи", Издателство на Българската академия на науките, София, 1979, стр. 94 / "Protobulgarian inscriptions", Publishing house of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, 1979, p. 94 By the early 9th century the lands that Kuber settled had been incorporated into the First Bulgarian Empire. The archaeologist from Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Professor Ivan Mikulčić, revealed that in the region of Prilep graves were discovered which most likely belong to the Bulgar tribe Kutrigurs which were part of the Sermesianoi. However, Kuber planned an attack on Salonica which was discovered by the Byzantines and he and the Kutrigurs were banished from these parts and set out for the region of Northern Epirus to settle there. In Erseke and Vrap there was a treasure found with supposed Bulgar origin or ownership.Иван Микулчиќ, "Средновековни градови и тврдини во Македонија" , Скопје, "Македонска цивилизација", 1996, стр. 29-33 / "Medieval towns and strongholds in Macedonia", Skopje, Publishing house "Macedonian civilization", 1996, p. 29-33, in MacedonianCsiky, Gergely et al. (2019). Finds related to the vrap–erseke-group from the stara Bulgaria collection (Varna) (A Vrap–Erseke-kör leletei a várnai Stara Bulgaria Múzeumi Gyűjteményből). In: Türk A. - Balogh Cs. - Major B. (eds): Hadak útján XXIV.: A népvándorláskor fiatal kutatóinak XXIV. konferenciája. Budapest - Esztergom 2017, 165-175. However, it is likely that these artefact actually represent evidence of Avar presence in the region, which fits with known historiography. Truly, there were vast similarities between early Avar and Bulgar material culture found in Old Bulgaria.

Christianization and adoption of Cyrillic alphabet

The historical phenomenon of Christianization, the conversion of individuals to Christianity or the conversion of entire peoples at once, also includes the practice of converting pagan practices, pagan religious imagery, pagan sites and the pagan calendar to Christian uses. After Roman Empire was declared a Christian Empire by Theodosius I in 389, laws were passed against pagan practices over the course of the following years. The Slavic tribes in Macedonia accepted Christianity as their own religion around the 9th century mainly during the reign of prince Boris I of Bulgaria. The Christianization of Bulgaria was the process of converting 9th century medieval Bulgaria to Christianity as state religion.

The creators of the Glagolitic alphabet were the Byzantine Christian monks Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius. Under the guidance of the Patriarchate at Constantinople they were promoters of Christianity and initiated Slavic literacy among the Slavic people. They developed their alphabet from their extensive knowledge of the local Slavic dialect spoken in the hinterland of Thessaloniki,The Balkans. From Constantinople to Communism. Dennis P Hupchik which became the basis for Old Church Slavonic, the first literary Slavic language. Their work was accepted in early medieval Bulgaria and continued by Clement of Ohrid, creator of the Cyrillic script and Naum of Ohrid as founders of the Ohrid Literary School. Cyril and Methodius evangelized from Constantinople into the BalkansWhat Does the Future Hold for Mankind by R A Bowland, In the legacy of Cyril and Methodius, carried on by Clement and Naum, the development of Slavic literacy was crucial in preventing assimilation of the Slavs either by cultures to the North or by the Greek culture to the south.Who Are the Macedonians?, Page 19, by Hugh Poulton, The introduction of Slavic liturgy paralleled Boris I's continued development of churches and monasteries throughout his realm.

First Bulgarian empire In the early 9th century, most of the region of Macedonia (as well as other large parts of the Balkan peninsula), excluding its coastal parts and the area of Thessaloniki, were incorporated into the First Bulgarian Empire. With the defeat of the Bulgarian empire by Byzantium in the mid 10th century, the eastern part of the Bulgarian empire and its capital Preslav were annexed into the Byzantine Empire. The western part, covering most of present-day North Macedonia, continued to be ruled by the Tsar Samuil of Bulgaria, who saw himself as the successor of the Bulgarian Empire. Samuil ruled his kingdom from the island of St. Achilles in Prespa. He was crowned in Rome in 997 as Tsar of Bulgaria by Pope Gregory V. The remains of his castle are still present in the city of Ohrid. Under Samuil, the fortunes of the empire and the great military rivalry against Byzantines were once more revived, albeit temporarily. However, Samuil's army was soundly defeated in 1014 by the Byzantine emperor Basil II The Bulgar-Slayer, member of the Macedonian dynasty. Four years later the Bulgarian empire fell once again under Byzantine control, and remained up until the 13th century, when the region was briefly passed to Latin, Bulgarian and back to Byzantine rule.Who Are the Macedonians?, Page 20, by Hugh Poulton, Konstantin Asen, a former nobleman from Skopje, ruled over much of the region as the Tsar of Bulgaria from 1257 to 1277.

Serbian empire From the mid-14th century, most of Macedonia was incorporated into the Serbian Kingdom. The Serbs saw themselves as liberators of their Slavic kin. Macedonia was very urbanised and lay along the important trade routes, thus it became the centre of Tsar Stefan Dušan's empire, making Skopje his capital. With his death the region fell under leadership of local nobles, who divided his territories between them. King Marko became the new king in 1371 AD in parts of northwestern Macedonia, with the capital at Prilep in Pelagonia. Grammarist and historian Krste Petkov Misirkov mentions that according to contemporary historical sources and documents, the surname of King Marko was unknown. Disunited, the Balkan provinces fell to the emerging Ottoman Empire one by one.

Ottoman rule

This expansion of medieval states on the Balkan Peninsula was discontinued by the occupation of the Ottoman Empire in the late 14th century. The region of Macedonia remained part of the Ottoman Empire for the next 500 years, until 1912. Islamization (meaning the process of a society's conversion to the religion of Islam, or a neologism meaning an increase in observance by an already Muslim society) and Turkification (a cultural change in which someone who is not a Turk becomes one, voluntarily or by force) followed. Both terms can be used in contexts of connection with various Slavic people in Macedonia (Pomaks, Torbesh, and Gorani), which converted to Islam during the Ottoman rule. Overall, the large majority of local Bulgarians remained Christian.

Modern era

During the rule of the Ottomans, the local Bulgarians, Serbs, Albanians and others organized a number of uprisings: Mariovo uprising (1564), Karposh's Rebellion (1689), Kresna-Razlog Uprising (1878) etc.