During World War II, Bulgaria, in order to realize the dream of "Greater Bulgaria" and to obtain a foothold in the Aegean Sea, occupied Vardar Macedonia, some territories in the east and south east of Serbia (the "Western Territories"), Poraraxlye, Nishava and Timok valley regions, Kosovo and parts of Aegean Macedonia.

During its occupation of Macedonia, the Bulgarian administration agitated the Macedonian people against Serbs, Greeks and Albanians, and sought to destroy the Macedonian consciousness distinct from the Bulgarian one. The Bulgarian propaganda went hand in hand with the suppression of the Macedonian people. The opponents of the Bulgarization campaign were sent to the concentration camps, while the pro-Bulgarian groups were provided with weapons. The Bulgarian occupation left enduring traces in the collective mind of the Macedonian people.

Following the surrender of the pro-Nazi regime in Sofia, the Yugoslav National Liberation Army occupied Vardar Macedonia at the end of the war. The Peace Treaty of Paris, signed on February 10, 1947, respected the boundaries of the Neuilly Treaty of 1919, and so the Treaty of Bucharest in 1913.

Meanwhile, on August 2, 1944, Yugoslav Macedonia officially became a federative state of Yugoslavia, as one of the constituent six republics. The establishment of the Macedonian state brought about a new set of equilibriums in calculations in the Balkans.

The Bulgarian attitude towards the Macedonians in these years was diametrically opposite to the Greek one, albeit for a short period. Towards the end of 1944, Bulgaria had accepted that the Macedonians were a distinct nationality, and should be given substantial administrative and cultural autonomy in Bulgaria.

The Stalin-Tito dispute was another turning point in the developments affecting Macedonia. After Yugoslavia was expelled from the Soviet dominated Cominform in June 1948, and Dimitrov, the Bulgarian Communist Party Leader, died in 1949, the Bulgarian policy with regard to Macedonia was completely changed. All the recently established Macedonian schools in Pirin Macedonia were closed and the Macedonian teachers were sent back to Yugoslavia.

In 1959 Bulgaria officially declared that it did not recognize a distinct Macedonian identity, claiming that "Macedonia was not the republic of the Macedonians, but an artificial political structure created by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia".

During the Yugoslav federation period the relations between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia were never congenial. From the beginning Greece continued to deny the existence of the Macedonians in Greece. According to a journalist writing at that time, "The Greeks were denying the [Macedonian] character of a large portion of their citizens and using as a basis for persecution the mere fact that this section of their population prefer to speak the [Macedonian] dialect".7

In the period following the civil war in Greece (1946-1949), the Macedonians living in the northern provinces of Greece were dislocated from the border areas with Yugoslavia, and large numbers of them escaped to Vardar Macedonia. Many among the remaining Macedonians were forced to publicly testify before the official Greek authorities that they were Greek and not speaking a "Slavic dialect".

After World War II these and other human rights repressions resulted in a second exodus of Macedonians from Greece, many Macedonians emigrating to Australia, Canada and the United States until the end of the 1950s. These Macedonians formed or joined the previously established colonies in Melbourne, Perth, Newcastle, Shepparton and Sydney in Australia, Toronto in Canada, and Indiana in the United States.

After the re-establishment of friendly relations between Greece and Yugoslavia in 1951, Belgrade from time to time brought up the issue of Aegean Macedonia, claiming that the minority rights of the Macedonians in Greece should be recognized by Athens. It had been usual that Greece closed its borders with the Federal Republic of Macedonia. The agreement signed in 1959 between Yugoslavia and Greece with regard to the border traffic was later suspended by Athens on the pretext that it was violated by Yugoslavia which used the agreement to agitate the Macedonian issue in Greece.

In 1991, after the declaration of independence by the Republic of Macedonia, the Greek government immediately took a hostile stance.

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