Demographic Characteristics of Vardar Macedonia Between the Two World Wars

The book Demographic Characteristics of Vardar Macedonia Between the Two World Wars by Ilievski provides a detailed examination of the population dynamics in Vardar Macedonia during the interwar period from 1918 to 1941. Relying primarily on census data from 1921 and 1931, the study explores the ethnic, linguistic, and religious composition of the region, while also acknowledging the political and administrative frameworks of the time, such as the creation of the Vardar Banovina in 1929. The author highlights how census data were often influenced by broader political and cultural pressures, including issues of identity, assimilation, and self-identification.

The analysis shows significant demographic changes, such as the decline of the Turkish population due to emigration, the growth of the Albanian population, and the steady increase of the Orthodox Christian majority. In 1931, Vardar Macedonia had nearly 939,000 inhabitants, with Orthodox Christians making up about sixty-eight percent and Muslims around thirty percent. These shifts were driven by natural population growth, colonization policies, particularly Serbian settlement in the 1920s, and the complex ways in which people declared their ethnicity or mother tongue under the census system of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

Beyond statistical trends, the book emphasizes the role of political and cultural influences on demographic data collection. For example, many Muslims of non-Turkish origin declared Turkish as their mother tongue due to cultural and religious affinity, raising questions about the reliability of census categories. By critically re-examining these sources, Ilievski contributes to filling a gap in Macedonian historiography, offering a clearer understanding of the interplay between population change, state policy, and identity formation in interwar Vardar Macedonia.