Macedonian Bulgarians

The Slavic-speaking population in the region of Macedonia had been referred to both (by outsiders and by most of themselves) as Bulgarians, and that is how they were predominantly seen since 10th,[9][10][11][12] up until the early 20th century and beyond.

[26]According to Encyclopædia Britannica, at the beginning of the 20th century the Macedonian Bulgarians constituted the majority of the population in the whole region of Macedonia, then part of the Ottoman Empire.

Within Greece, the Macedonian Slavs were designated "Slavophone Greeks", while within Serbia (later within Yugoslavia) they were officially treated as "South Serbs".

These cultural measures were reinforced by steps to alter the composition of the population: Serb colonists were implanted in Yugoslav Macedonia, while in Greek Macedonia, the mass settlement of Greek refugees from Anatolia definitively reduced the Slav population to minority status.

[37] The new authorities began a policy of removing of any Bulgarian influence and creating a distinct Slavic consciousness that would inspire identification with Yugoslavia.

[40][41] Practically as a consequence the rest of this people, with exception of Bulgaria proper, were eventually Macedonized or Hellenized.

[47] In the Ottoman General Census of 1881/82, the Orthodox Christian population of the kazas currently falling within the borders of the Republic of North Macedonia identified, as follows:

The Bitola inscription is a marble slab with Cyrillic letters of Ivan Vladislav from 1016. The text reports that he was Tsar of Bulgaria and Bulgarian by birth, and his subjects were Bulgarians.
Portrait of the Skopjan Konstantin Asen who reigned as the tsar of Bulgaria (1257–1277).
The cover of the book " Folk Songs of the Macedonian Bulgarians " published in 1860, in Belgrade by Stefan Verkovic .
Girls in a Bulgarian Girls' High School of Thessaloniki , 1882.
Bulgarian refugees from Southern Macedonia after the Second Balkan War .
Bulgarian students greeting the IMRO revolutionary Kosta Tsipushev by his return, after the Bulgarian annexation of Vardar Macedonia in 1941.
The banner of the Ilinden insurgents from Ohrid with Bulgarian flag on it and the inscription Свобода или смърть . The insurgents flew Bulgarian flags everywhere. [ 22 ] [ 23 ]
Todor Aleksandrov a notorious Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary