Home > Skopje
Skopje ( Albanian: Shkup, Macedonian: Скопје) is the capital city of the Republic of Macedonia. It has 600,000 inhabitants ( 2000 estimate) and is located on the upper Vardar river. It is the political, economic and cultural centre of Macedonia and a major centre for the metal-processing, chemical, timber, textile, leather and printing industries. Industrial development has been accompanied by an intensive development of internal and external trade and banking, as well as activities in the fields of culture and sport.Skopje was not known to the Ancient Greeks, and appears to have been founded in the 3rd century BC by the Dardanians, a people on the fringes of the Kingdom of Macedon. In Roman times there was town on the site called Justiniana Prima, but this was destroyed by an earthquake in 518. The town was refounded, perhaps by the early Romanians (or Vlachs), and in Byzantine times it was known as Skupi. Skopie often changed hands between the Byzantines and the Bulgarians in medieval times until it was conquered by the Serbs in the late 13th century. It was captured by the Ottomans in 1392 and known by the TurkishTurkish is a Turkic language, spoken by about 70 million speakers in Turkey and over 85 million speakers world-wide. The Turkish name for the language is Turkce''. Classification Turkish is a member of the Turkish family of languages, which includes Balka name Üsküb or Uskup during the half-millennium of OttomanOsmanlı İmparatorluğu Devlet-i Aliye-i Osmaniye The Ottoman Coat of Arms Imperial motto: unknown The Ottoman Empire at the height of its power Official language Ottoman Turkish Capital İstanbul ( Constantinople) Sovereigns Sultans rule.
Ottoman Üsküb was the capital of the vilayet (district) of KosovoKosovo and Metohija ( Serbian: Albanian: Kosova , usually called just Kosovo is an autonomous province of Serbia (which together with Montenegro constitutes Serbia and Montenegro). It is currently administered by the United Nations following the recent Ko. The Turkish writer Dilger Zede visited the city in the 17th century and wrote: "I travelled for a long time across that country of Rumelija and I saw a lot of beautiful cities and I was amazed from the Alah blessings, but not one has impressed and delighted me so much as the heavens city of Skopje across which passes the river Vardar." In 1689Events Louis XIV of France passed the Code Noir " allowing the full use of slaves in the French colonies. January 11 The Parliament of England declares King James II of England deposed. February 13 William III and Mary II are proclaimed co-rulers of Engla, however, it was burned by the AustriaAustria is a landlocked country in Central Europe, a federation of nine states. Austria is bordered by Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to then general Picolomini.
In 1905Events January-April January 22 Massacre of Russian demonstrators at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, one of the triggers of the abortive Russian Revolution of 1905. January 26 The Cullinan Diamond is found near Pretoria, South Africa at the Premier Üsküb had a population of about 32,000, a mixture of SerbsSerbs Total population: 11 million (est. Population: ; Serbia and Montenegro: 6,674,470 ; Bosnia and Herzegovina: 1,479,930 ; Croatia: 201,631 (2001) (580,000 in 1991) ; Slovenia: 38,964 (2002) ; FYROM: 35,939 (2002) ; Albania: 10,000 ; Romania: 22,725 (2, BulgariansBulgarians are a Slavic people that today lives mainly in the Republic of Bulgaria and Macedonia, but also in Greece, the Ukraine, Moldova, USA and other countries. Bulgarians are descendants of two peoples Southern Slavs, who settled on the Balkan penins, Turks, Albanians and Gypsies. It was the seat of an Orthodox Greek archbishop, of the archbishop of the Roman Catholic Albanians and of a Bulgarian bishop. In 1910 Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, later to become famous as Mother Teresa, was born in Üsküb into a Catholic Albanian family.
In 1913 the city fell to the Serbs during the Balkan War and was ceded to Serbia, which became the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918 and Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929. It was under Bulgarian rule during both World Wars but in 1945 it became the capital of the Yugoslav republic of Macedonia. In 1963 Skopje was struck by a major earthquake, and numerous cultural monuments were seriously damaged.
Under Yugoslav rule Skopje grew rapidly and became a major industrial centre for the southern Balkans region. In 1991 the Yugoslav federation broke up and Skopje became the capital of the independent Republic of Macedonia. Greece objected to the use of the name Macedonia by the new state and imposed an economic blockade, which severely damaged Skopje's economy by closing its access to the sea through Thessaloniki. The blockade was lifted in 1995 following an agreement between Greece and Macedonia. Many Greek nationalists still refer to the republic as "the Republic of Skopje" and its inhabitants (pejoratively) as "Skopjeans" (Skopiani in Greek).
