SKOPJE, Macedonia – Hundreds of thousands of Macedonians are expected to flood the capital, Skopje, to celebrate the country’s 20th anniversary of independence.

The landlocked Balkan nation of 2 million was the only former Yugoslav republic to secede without bloodshed in 1991.

Violence broke out a decade later, as government forces put down an armed rebellion by ethnic Albanians seeking greater minority rights.

Macedonia has been locked in a bitter dispute over its name with Greece, which says the term “Macedonia” implies territorial claims on its own province of the same name. Ties with Bulgaria also are testy, with Bulgaria considering Macedonia’s language a dialect of Bulgarian.