Overseas The Serbs are one of the constitutional ethnic groups of North Macedonia (Macedonian: Србите во Северна Македонија, Serbian: Срби у Северној Македонији, Srbi u Severnoj Makedoniji), numbering about 24,000 inhabitants (2021 census).

Minor revolts took place in Ottoman Macedonia, although the liberation of these lands came to fruit in the late 19th and early 20th century, with Serbian and Bulgarian effort.

In the decades before the Balkan Wars, the governments of Bulgaria and Serbia competed to win over the affiliation of the Slavic Orthodox population, which had traditionally identified as Bulgarian.

The series of events are not clear due to contradicting sources, but it is sure that after 971, the Cometopuli brothers were the de facto rulers of the Western Bulgarian lands.

Vukan however, immediately violated the treaty, launching an operation in the Vardar region, conquering the cities of Vranje, Skopje and Tetovo, with much loot.

[15] The Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitos wrote in about 950 that the city of "Ta Serbia" situated north-west from Thessaloniki, derived its name from its Serbian founders in the early 7th century.

[17][better source needed][18] In the late 1200s, Strez, a Bulgarian royalty of the Asen dynasty, fled to Serbia after a feud with Emperor Boril, who had taken the throne.

Strez was for a time a Duke under Stefan Nemanjić and had by 1209 conquered most of Macedonia; from the Struma valley in the east, which bordered lands controlled by Boril, to Bitola and perhaps Ohrid in the west, and from Skopje in the north to Veria in the south.

In 1223, Theodore Komnenos ruled Macedonia as Despot of Epirus (proclaimed Emperor) with his Greek, Serb and Albanian lieutenants, who held lands to the Serbian border beyond Principality of Arbanon, Debar and Skoplje.

[20] In 1230, Theodore was defeated and captured by Emperor Ivan Asen II in the battle of Klokotnitsa, and lands west of Adrianople were once again part of Bulgaria; all the way to Durrës, Ivan Asen wrote in a memorial column that he conquered "His [Theodore Komnenos'] whole land from Odrin (Edirne) to Drach (Durrës), also Greek, Albanian and Serb" after the victory.

In the 11th and 12th century, family names became more common and stable in Byzantium, adapted by the majority of people in Byzantine Macedonia, Epirus and other regions (including women, sometimes even monks), not only aristocrats.

Serbia's conquest of the areas south of the Shara mountain chain, on the plains of Polog, and in Byzantine dominated places like Skopje and later Serres (Slavic: Ser) began with the expansion of Serbian King Milutin in 1282.

With the victory over the Bulgarian army near Velbazhd (today's Kyustendil, Republic of Bulgaria) in 1331, the Morava and upper Vardar basins were secured for the Serbian state.

[22] A Byzantine Serb military family of Thessaloniki, Deblitzenos, produced several soldiers holding titles such as pronoia, tzaousios, of which is also mentioned in documents of the Emperor.[when?

[25] Settling of Serb military and upper class citizens in Veria is mentioned in 1350, after Dušan the Mighty had conquered the town in between 1343 and 1347 and driven out all the inhabitants in fear of a revolt.

In the middle of the 17th century, Grand Vizier Mehmed Köprülü successfully converted peoples of the Danube region, and notably the Serbs of Dibra (Debar) in western Macedonia.

[28] From the beginning of the 18th century only Bulgarians were mentioned in Macedonia from foreign travallers, which means that they gradually absorbed the smaller Serbian ethnic element.

[33] The Serbian Army was joined by southern Serbs who made up special volunteer detachments, a large number being from Macedonia, who wanted to liberate their home regions and unify them with Serbia.

[35] When peace was signed between the Serbs and Ottomans, these groups conducted independent guerrilla fighting under the Serbian flag, which they carried and flew far south of the demarcation line.

[38] Because of the terror against the unprotected rayah (lower class, Christians), many left for the mountains, fled across the border into Serbia, from where they raided their home regions in order to revenge the atrocities carried out by the Ottomans.

[40] As Serbs of true and pure stock, of the purest and most intrinsically Serbian country... We for the last time implore on our knees... That we may in some manner and by some means be freed from the slavery of five centuries, and united with our country, the Principality of Serbia, and that the tears of blood of the Serbian martyrs may be stanched so that they, too, may become useful members of the European community of nations and of the Christian world; we do not desire to exchange the harsh Turkish slavery for the vastly harsher and darker Bulgarian slavery, which will be worse and more intolerable than that of the Turks which we are at present enduring, and will compel us in the end either to slay all our own people, or to abandon our country, to abandon our holy places, and graves, and all that we hold dear...In the beginning of 1880, some 65 rebel leaders (glavari), from almost all provinces in southern Old Serbia and Macedonia, sent an appeal to M. S. Milojević, the former commander of volunteers in the Serbian-Ottoman War (1876–78), asking him to, with requesting from the Serbian government, prepare 1,000 rifles and ammunition for them, and that Milojević be appointed the commander of the rebels and that they be allowed to cross the border and start the rebellion.

[42] The leaders were among the most influential in the districts of Kumanovo, Kriva Palanka, Kočani, Štip, Veles, Prilep, Bitola, Ohrid, Kičevo and Skopje.

[43] The appeal was signed by Spiro Crne, Mihajlo Čakre, Dime Ristić-Šiće, Mladen Stojanović "Čakr-paša", Čerkez Ilija, Davče Trajković, and 59 other rebels and former volunteers in the Serbian army.

[44] Viewed of as a continuation of the Kumanovo Uprising,[45] the Brsjak Revolt began on 14 October 1880,[46] and broke out in the nahiya of Kičevo, Poreče, Bitola and Prilep.

They were: Bogdan Radenković; Aleksandar Bukvić; Gligorije Elezović; Vasa Jovanović; Milan Čemerikić; Sava Stojanović; David Dimitrijević; Đorđe Hadzi-Kostić; Velimir Prelić and Jovan Šantrić.

The Serbian Democratic League sent to Thessaloniki Bogdan Radenković, Jovan Šantrić, and Đorđe Hadži-Kostić to negotiate with the Central Young Turk Board.

In 1910 as a representative of the party, he was sent to Istanbul where he urged the Turkish authorities to stop using their troops (Bashi-bazouk) to terrorize the Serbian population in Gjilan.

[51] At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, however, the Allies approved Serbian control of Vardar Macedonia, claiming that the Macedonian Slavs were Southern Serbs.

Immediately after the liberation from the occupying forces, in 1945, the requests to become a part of the newly formed federal unit of Serbia came from some regions of Macedonia in spite of the terror of the new Macedonian government.

[57] In September 1991, shortly after the start of the Yugoslav Wars, SR Macedonia held a referendum on independence from Yugoslavia for which there was a 72% turnout of eligible voters.