Renaming states within a country is still common, but a country name getting changed, is rare! Macedonia is one such country.
Macedonian prime minister Zoran Zaev, announced the change two months ago. Post his talks with the Greek government, he announced that the country’s name will soon be ‘North Macedonia’.
During the erstwhile Yugoslavia, from 1945 to 1991, Macedonia was called the ‘Socialist Republic of Macedonia’. After the division, when the constituent countries were granted autonomous status, Yugoslavia’s Marshal Tito chose to call this country Macedonia. Now, this was a tricky situation as the Greeks attach immense relevance to this name. Macedonia is a historical region in northern Greece, the ancient home of Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great.
Greece and Macedonia have been negotiating the name change scenario for years now. Options like ‘Upper Macedonia’, ‘New Macedonia’ and ‘Ilinden Macedonia’ (named after a 1903 uprising against the Ottomans) also emerged and did the rounds for quite some time.
As an olive branch, Skopje even changed the name of their airport and removed ‘Alexander the Great’ signage off its airport earlier this year. The agreed name of ‘North Macedonia’ itself was a compromise and protesters on both the sides have their views. Nationalists in Greece have protested and are against the name ‘Macedonia’ even being there in the title. According to them, it is Greek!
Back home in the country in question, the name still needs approval from voters.
Polls show that Macedonia is likely to vote in favour of the new name on September 30th 2018, which would officially put North Macedonia on the roll call of nations. It will join other directional countries like East Timor, South Africa, and South Sudan, who have, in the past, undergone name change.
Will that change its relation with neighbouring Greece and make this old battle for names, a thing of the past? Only time will tell. But as of now, Macedonia is all set to be rechristened North Macedonia.