The village of Grnčari is inhabited by an Sunni Muslim Albanian speaking majority and Orthodox Macedonian minority.[3] A few Turkish speaking families are also present in Grnčari.[3] Sunni Albanians in Grnčari traditionally highlighted their religious identity over a linguistic one having closer economic and social relations with Turks and Macedonian Muslims in the region and being distant from Orthodox Macedonians.[3] Over time these differences have disappeared through intermarriage, closer communal and cultural relations with Bektashi and other Sunni Prespa Albanian communities in the region.[3]
In statistics gathered by Vasil Kanchov in 1900, the village of Grnčari was inhabited by 165 Bulgarian Christians and 300 Muslim Albanians.[4] In 1905 in statistics gathered by Dimitar Mishev Brancoff, Grnčari was inhabited by 120 Bulgarian Exarchists and 360 Muslim Albanians.[5] After World War Two, some Albanian settlements in Yugoslavia declared themselves as Turks due to the word being a generic term for Muslims or pressure by Yugoslav authorities to do so.[6][7] In the 2002 census, Albanians form a large ethnic majority in the village.[8]
^D.M.Brancoff (1905). La Macédoine et sa Population Chrétienne. Paris. pp. 170-171.
^Brunnbauer, Ulf (2004). "Fertility, families and ethnic conflict: Macedonians and Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia, 1944–2002." Nationalities papers. 32. (3): 568. "The decrease of the proportion of Albanians between 1948 and 1953 was due to the fact that in 1953 many Albanian-speaking Muslims identified themselves as "Turks" in order to be able to emigrate to Turkey. Hence the share of the "Turkish" population grew from 8.3% in 1948 to 15.6% in 1953. During the 1950s, around 130,000 "Turks" emigrated from Yugoslav Macedonia to Turkey, as a result of an emigration agreement between Yugoslavia and Turkey."; p. 583. "Once communist power was established, the Albanians, and the Muslim communities in general, felt increasingly alienated from the state, for example, because of its anti-religious agenda, its ethnic Macedonian outlook, the strong Serbian influence, and its radical attempts to change the role of women…. The local elites of the Albanians, and especially the Muslim clergy, had associated inclusion in the social mainstream with the dangers of cultural pollution and assimilation. This alienation from socialist transformation was among the reasons why thousands of Albanians emigrated as "Turks" to Turkey in the 1950s. Hence, the effects of discrimination by state authorities were multiplied by those of self-isolation."
^Friedman, Victor (2003). "Language in Macedonia as an identity construction site." In Joseph, Brian (ed). When Languages Collide: Perspectives on Language Conflict, Language Competition, and Language Coexistence]. Ohio State university press. p. 272. When the 1948 census was conducted, relations between Yugoslavia and Albania were good while those between Yugoslavia and Turkey were not. By 1953, Tito had broken with Stalin and in the wake of that split Yugoslavia had broken with Albania while improving relations with Turkey. The subsequent decades saw both emigration to Turkey (sometimes for economic reasons, but see also Akan 2000, 81—1 19) by those declaring Turkish nationality (sometimes declared on the basis of Muslim religion rather than Turkish mother tongue) as well as rising Albanian nationalism and pressure on Muslims in Kosovo and Western Macedonia to declare Albanian nationality (Tanasković 1992 143—44; Akan 2000, 179—221). The 1981 census was the last uncontested census conducted in former Yugoslavia.
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