SUMMARYThe struggles for national conservation and unification of the Bulgarians in Macedonia, Thrace and Dobrudja after the Berlin Treaty dictates (July 1878) are inextricably bound up with the revived Third Bulgarian state. Its territory, and the border area of Kyustendil in particular, is an important base for the Macedonian liberation movement until 1912.
The Organized national activities of Macedonian Bulgarians are impossible without a free Bulgarian state and community.This necessary and natural support is not only spiritual, moral, diplomatic, military, personnel but ideological as well. The leaders of the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (IMARO), and after 1919 the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) share some programme beliefs which as a rule belong firstly to the Bulgarian political thought and practice.
Since the autumn of 1918 Alexander Malinov’s government states in front of the military representatives of the Entente its agreement “an independent state under the Great Powers protectorate to be formed from Macedonia”. In the spring of 1919 the Bulgarian government hands in an offer of plebiscite among the population in Bulgarian the territories disputed by the neighbours to the winners of the Entente, the USA and Belgium. This approach to solve territorial arguments through referendum is rejected. The foreign affairs minister Michail Madjarov again raises a voice of support for the idea of “ an independent Macedonian state” at the National Assembly during the discussion of the peace draft contract. He claims that if the Greeks and Serbians accept the idea of “an independent Macedonia”in the name of peace in the Balkans, Bulgaria will be ready to cede the Pirin region.
The imposed peace treaty from Neuilly, November 1919, ratifies the statement that Pirin Macedonia remains within Bulgaria. The revolutionaries keep the autonomy idea of “creating an independent Macedonia” as a programming goal, a stage to the future unification of all Bulgarians. Although the international circumstances exclude applying this position, it is adopted for a long time in the IMRO ideological and political vocabulary.
The IMRO decisive behaviour in Bulgaria is determined by the attempts of the agrarian government to control the Macedonian movement through some ex-inhabitants of Seres and armed federalists, by the wretched condition of the numerous refugees, the corruptible agrarian authorities, by party divisions and oppositions, which threaten the national unity, etc. Todor Alexandrov’s attempts in the border area of Petrich after the war meet with success in autumn 1922. It is then when the illegal armed groups become the base of the established non-revolutionary supporting institution of the local Bulgarians forced to leave their homes. They are called to stay faithful to the oath taken in the past, to show their consideration and render financial help in the IMRO hard struggle against the anti-Bulgarian regimes in Vardar and Aegean Macedonia.
In the present first author’s monographic work the IMRO supporting organization is the main object of research and scientific analysis. This original Bulgarian public institution is the only active political factor in the Pirin region from 1922 to 1934. The establishment and support of the organizational non-party regime in the region, the ideological aspect, legal and illegal forms of existence and activity, as well as the IMRO participation in all Bulgarians’ political life is the object of scientific explanation and interpretation. From the researcher’s point of view an emphasis on IMRO the activities in the free Bulgarian state could be made in a more detailed and purposeful way.
The Regional thematic presentation displays large opportunities to contradict several politically motivated unscientific macedonianistic myths. Looking at our fatherland history Skopie publicism continues lying while explaining numerous questions concerning the nationality of the population in the Pirin region, the IMRO political separatism and the nature of the organized “state within the state”, the relationships between the traditional revolutionary institution with the Bulgarian governments after 1919, the internecine struggles in the liberation movement of tue Macedonian Bulgarians, etc. On the whole, the present monograph goes beyond the regional aspect because it enriches, estimates and makes the all-Bulgarian dimensions in the IMRO revisionist struggle after the First World War significant in a scientific historic way.
The author’s aim not only to present the IMRO activity in Bulgaria in details, with many facts, but also to throw light upon some important moments of the development of the Bulgarian national question during the period between the wars is achieved by means of the followed methodological rule. It completely takes into consideration the mutual dependence and subordination, balance among the following categories – national-regional-local in the process of this hard, labour-consuming research work and scientific investigation and while drawing some general conclusions in narration.
The Research work is based on original domestic sources. Some unpublished and not very popular with scientific circles documents, kept in 46 archives funds, have been investigated. They are preserved at the Archives of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Cyril and Methodius National Library, the state archives and museums in Sofia, Blagoevgrad, Razlog, the village of Eleshnitsa, Sandanski. Among these documents introduced to scientific circulation there are statutes, minutes and reports from the IMRO congresses, regulations, memorandums, declarations, letters, receipts, notes of auditing committees, which could be pointed as the most substantial preconditions for making clear the entire conception of the IMRO behaviour in Bulgaria.
The author’s aim is achieved due to archives sources, available memoirs, regional investigations, materials from periodicals as well as historic facts, critically adopted and analytically estimated. By means of these instruments several groups of closely connected research goals are achieved. One of them includes the preconditions and the circumstances, traditions and innovations reflected in the organizational principles when resuming and transforming IMRO into a supporting formation. Measures and means of the organization authorities to establish, maintain and keep the imposed non-party regime in the Petrich region are traced out.
The IMRO political ideology, putting it into practice in the region and the attitude of the Bulgarian state authorities to this process, programming stand on the Macedonian question and the position of Petrich in it belong to the other group of goals. Efforts are made through the activity of the supporting organization to reveal the role of IMRO in the Bulgarian national struggles during the period from 1922 to 1925 as well as to point out the ways of its participation in the Bulgarian parliamentary and public life after the war.
The implementation of the goals referring to the third problem group is directed to revealing various IMRO activities in the Pirin region. After 9 June 1923, born in a period of struggles against the agrarian government, the “state within the state” is under the discreet protection of some circles belonging to Bulgarian ruling circles. The illegal “state” in Pirin Macedonia has an entire disposal of the efficient forensic and criminal, financial and tax systems, own armed units, which carry out the national and responsible mission to guard a part of the western and southern Bulgarian border line. Attention is drawn to some more significant IMRO legal acts in the Petrich region – the cultural and economic institute and the Macedonian parliamentary group.
The determining influence of two important factors is considered when pursuing the three groups of research goals. The revolutionary organization of the Macedonian Bulgarians has a secret and conspiratorial way of existence. This tactics behaviour is not only to show concern about Bulgarian state but it is a circumstance which makes difficult to reveal the historic truth and it hides some traps in the research work. That is why the writer’s ambition to be objective in presentation requires a critical analysis of the various in its kind and contents authentic documentary material. Furthermore, after the First World War IMRO finds itself under the pressure of the leader’s syndrome. Mentality, psychological characteristics and individual qualities of the “first men” in the organization have a decisive impact on different aspects of its activity in Bulgaria. The formed “side fronts” and the abrupt changes in the liberation movement often result not only from outside pressure but are directly dependent on Central Committee members’ behaviour, their ruling style and morality.
The names introduced into scientific circulation such as “Pirin Macedonia”, “Petrich district”, “Petrich”, “Petrich region” have the same geographic dimension. The author does not insert any deeper meaning in the widely used concept of “Macedonian liberation movement”. It should be understood as national liberation movement of the Macedonian Bulgarians who continue living in three different countries – Bulgaria, Greece and Yugoslavia after the First World War.
Special attention is paid to the establishment and the initial activity of the IMRO supporting organization (1919-1924). New facts about the IMRO secret participation in the armed coup on 9 June, 1923 and the events in September, 1923 are observed in details. The book shows the crisis situation in the IMRO since the summer of 1924 and the stabilization of the organization base in the region of Petrich imposed by Ivan Mihailov after Todor Alexandrov’s death (31 August 1924).
The new period in the alternative establishment of the IMRO institution (1925-1928) which started after the Sixth Congress of the revolutionary functionaries is thoroughly revealed (February, 1925). A non-party model of the public political system is drawn. The legal structures in the region, such as charity brotherhoods, youth cultural and educational organizations, Ilinden associations, etc., have all contributed to its realization. It is deliberately emphasized on the ideological and political validity of the illegal “state system” as well as its organizational, personnel and financial security. The transformation of the supporting institution into a political force “involving no responsibility” through establishing a financial and tax system, well-kept readiness of the military units and through the state administration in the region is pointed out. The secret attitude of the official ruling factors to the IMRO activity in Bulgaria is reproduced by means of the available poor documentary sources. On the basis of the ones not used so far the growing controversy between Ivan Mihailov and Alexander Protogerov concerning all questions of the organization regime in the Pirin region is analyzed.
The liberating movement of the Macedonian Bulgarians in the Petrich region (1928-1934) after Alexander Protogerov’s death and the Seventh Congress (1928) develops in much more difficult conditions.The archives material introduced for the first time in scientific circulation allows us to make some important conclusions: In conditions of splitting up and interfaction struggle the organization leaders with the help of extreme ways fight to keep their sovereignty for the vitally important Petrich base; Mihailov and his comrades from the Central Committee after 1928 try to eliminate the negative public reaction to the bloody fratricidal dispute and rely on the two most substantial IMRO acts in Pirin Macedonia – the Macedonian parliamentary group, whose representatives in the 22nd and 23rd Ordinary National Assembly defend the all-Bulgarian spiritual unity, and the creative work of public utility carried out by the regional and district cultural and economic councils in the Petrich region.
Since its restoration up to 19 May 1934 IMRO strictly keeps its base and back in Bulgaria inviolable. Throughout this period the organizational activity in Pirin Macedonia is complicated, contradictory and ambiguous. This is due to the determined conflict and duplicity in the relationships between IMRO leaders on one side and Bulgarian state on the other, political parties, some circles of Bulgarian public, a part of Petrich populations, etc.
All Bulgarian governments after 1919 are forced to consider the stuation after the war and the Theaty of Neuilly. The leaders of the organizations remain loyal to the tradition and rely on the free the Bulgarian state and Bulgarian people to support morally and materially the renewed national and political struggle of the Macedonian Bulgarians. The IMRO the restoration and applying mainly in the Petrich region the assumed “exterritorial right” inevitably leads to the infringement of Bulgarian state sovereignty. A permanent understanding has come to the front that the obtained statute of the Pirin region will be stood up for until the successful end of the liberation movement. As a mater of fact the sovereign rights of Bulgaria regarding a region of its internationally recognized territory have been usurped.
The unique domestic situation also has an international character. The constant ambition of Yugoslavia, Greece and Romania is to liquidate the Bulgarian revolutionary action, born by their organized policy of assimilation and terror. Yugoslavia is particularly active due to the fact that, because of the process of forced assimilation of the Bulgarians in Aegean Macedonia, IMRO carries out dynamite actions almost only in Vardar Macedonia. The governments in Belgrade and Athens, not without reasons, think that attacks are prepared in Kyustendil, Gorna Djumaya, Petrich and Nevrokop. Bulgaria is directly accused of infringing the international law agreement and lack of wish to put in practice all its legal power in the Prirn region where IMRO rules. The prestige of the Bulgarian state is questioned. The efforts to defend the right of the Bulgarians in the neighbourhood countries don‘t prove to be successful.
From outside reasons to strain the relations between Sofia government circles and leaders of the organization in Petrich are constantly provoked. In the end the a conviction is formed that the national policy is a duty of “the responsible factors” and the way to overcome the diplomatic isolation goes through the IMRO banning and rapprochement of Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. The conflict has ideological and political base. The ruling circles of IMRO have well-grounded code towards the political parties and organizations in Bulgaria after 1919: they should not introduce the party spirit, split and weaken the liberation movement.
The ideology and practice of the revolutionary organization underestimates social interests and class needs, denies party scuffle, doesn‘t admit partisan calculations and leader’s intriguing but makes an emphasis on national unification, spirituality and patriotism.
The scientific problem of a comparative analysis between the programme ways existing in the movement in Macedonia, Thrace and Dobrudja and the position of different factors in the motherland towards the national and political struggles has not been explained yet. It is obvious that the Bulgarian state does not have a drawn up strategy about the role of the legal and illegal organizations in solving the complicated national question. the IMRO leaders, however, have their own “Macedonian political programme”. The aim of the supporting institution remains unchangeable: “Free and independent Macedonia”. The updated version of the autonomist idea is not anti-bulgarian. It does not exclude the motive of annexation, deliberately hidden, considered as a way to “preserve the Bulgarian element”. Todor Aleksandorov and Ivan Mihailov are convinced that due to the IMRO various activity in the region of Petrich conditions are made to apply exactly this ambitious line. Its most essential features are: to guarantee the national and political rights of the Bulgarian population in Vardar and Aegean Macedonia, to make possible free economic, spiritual and political life of the Bulgarian population in Yugoslavia and Greece, to gain territorial ”unification of all parts of Macedonia” by differentiating Bulgarians and other ethnical communities politically in a state; the established “independent Macedonian state” (in the sense of second Bulgarian state) works to strengthen the Bulgarian spiritual unification and sets prerequisites for unification with “Motherland Bulgaria” in the future.
Ivan Mihailov wants the Bulgarian parties and organizations to accept the IMRO political view for the region of Petrich as “future constituent part of free Macedonia”. But consensus on this question in Sofia is not reached. the Bulgarian public reasonably stands up for the idea of territorial inseparability of the Kingdom within the borders of which the administrative region of Petrich is. The behaviour of the organization figures in the free motherland is also determined by the reserve of the Bulgarian authorities towards the IMRO political programme about solving the Macedonian question. Since the autumn of 1924 Mihailov himself directs and monitors the IMRO activity in the Pirin region. Being a Bulgarian patriot and a faithful son of fighting Macedonia, he is convinced of the justice of his credo and he is ready to defend the power of the organization around the Pirin mountain, to suggest and impose in Bulgaria his ideal for “an independent Macedonian state” as a secret way to the sacred unification of all Bulgarians.
The conflicts in relation between IMRO and free Bulgaria are determined socially and psychologically. The revolutionary organization is established to struggle in Vardar and Aegean Macedonia but because of hard conditions IMRO gradually becomes exterior for “enslaved Bulgarians”. It is no chance that the argument between Protogerov and Mihailov about the necessity to keep “the interior principles” is so serious and fatally predetermined. The legal and illegal organizational work is done in Bulgaria and it mainly includes the population of the Petrich region, which is permanently incorporated in the colourful life of its motherland. For many Bulgarians in the region of Petrich Macedonia, local ones and refugees, the reasons for the extraordinary regime in the region are hard to understand. To the very end they remain convinced supporters of the opinion that the legendary organization turns aside from its historical mission.
The establishment of the supporting organization for the first time changes the IMRO traditional face. In spite of the large prerogatives of the Bulgarian state authorities a part of the territory of the Bulgarian Kingdom is turned into a field to materialize the IMRO different ideological and theoretical postulates. The population in the south-west of Bulgaria is concerned directly and indirectly by the existence of the organization because a part of its constitutionally guaranteed democratic rights, values and freedom are infringed.
Depriving IMRO of its individuality is an immediate result of the unnecessarily serious conflict regarding organizational strategy and tactics combined with mutual leaders’ resentment ant lack of normal friendly relationships between the members of the Central committee. Todor Alexandrov and Alexander Protogerov’s assassinations and the following interfaction struggle accelerate the process of the IMRO destruction.
After 1919 “the sons of fighting Macedonia” struggle not only against the Serbian and Greek authorities but against some Bulgarians, too: agrarians, federalists, members of the ex-revolutionary region of Seres, communists, who blindly pursue the Comintern policy in the Balkans, renegades, conspirators against the non-party regime in the region, public figures and politicians, who disapprove of the IMRO attitude to the way of solving the Macedonian question, etc.
After Alexander Protogerov’s assassination it was only IMRO, led by Ivan Mihailov, which had a programme for continuing the struggles in Vardar and Aegean Macedonia. Except for being a militant base the Petrich region is also the most important supporting point to provide control over the legal movement in Bulgaria and thus the direct following of the liberation ideal is ignored.
The IMRO leading committee does not manage to muster its strength and to use fully the abilities of the other ethnical communities – the Jewish, Turkish and Wallach.
In this difficult war hope is set mainly on the Macedonian Bulgarians and their free state. The members, graduates and supporters of the organization remain loyal to the Bulgarian national spirit. They accept the Macedonian question as a part of the Bulgarian national fate and they are ready to defend the territorial sovereignty, interior security and state foundations. ”The interior and exterior enemies” are seen by Macedonian revolutionaries as national apostates and traitors. The obligatory sanction of the organization is pointed at them.
The state guarding element remains the leading one not only in forensic and criminal activity. It is in force when fighting back the emigrants’ attacks mainly from Vardar Macedonia and during “the enemy attack” of the Greek army in 1925.
The independence and strength of the Bulgarian state are an important factor to achieve the aims of the IMRO statute.
The military training organized for the population of Petrich, fit for carrying arms, proves to be a contribution to the Bulgarian national system of security and defence forced to keep the terms of the Treaty of Neuilly.
During IMRO ten years’ practice a whole financial and accounting mechanism for raising funds is finally applied. The income for the treasury of the organization, received almost regularly, determines substantially the IMRO independent behaviour and the financial support of several sensible and efficient legal and illegal liberation activities.
Todor Alexandrov and Ivan Mihailov deserve most of establishing and functioning of the supporting organization upon some ideological and moral foundations. Its first leaders Aleko Vassilev and the lieutenant-colonel Georgi Atanassov are not strangers to leaders’ ambitions and organizational time-serving, which is financially determined. The other two regional representatives of the Central committee Yordan Gyurkov and Pancho Toshev are their exact opposites. A large number of IMRO members from the region are their associates: Argir Manassiev, Stoyan Philipov, Ivan Karadjov, Boris Bunev, Ivan Ingilizov, Atanas Madjarov, Zahari Novev, Strahil Razvigorov, Assen Avramov, Iliya Gadjev and dozens of other participants in the liberation movement, who believe that in this way they support the Macedonian Bulgarians’ struggle.
The end of the legendary organization, which has 40 years of life, is tragic. In spite of the fact that the numerous IMRO supporters and followers in the region do not betray the Bulgarian national spirit, they sustain on them some undeserved attacks on the part of the regimes of violence and oppression from 19 May 1934 and especially after 9 September 1944.
IMRO strengthening in the difficult time between the wars as the most militant, revolutionary and conspiratorial unit, not only in the Balkans but also in Europe, is a direct consequence of the activity of its supporting organization in the Petrich region as well.
The revolutionary organization of the Macedonian Bulgarians in the free motherland is an original part of the Bulgarian political system. The lack of a united point of view and a joint action between the ruling and non – responsible factors makes the connection with Bulgarian ethnical community fragile. Being a revolutionary in Bulgaria leads to results opposite to the expected ones.
IMRO supporting organization in its whole contradictory and complicated actions is an institution with its own contribution in Bulgarian cultural and political history during the period between the wars. In spite of all weak points for nearly 12 years hundreds of ordinary Bulgarians take part in armed units and village police, in local organizational committees, in mass performances of cultural and economic councils. They are brought up in the spirit of patriotism, love of their country and readiness for any sacrifice in the name of a national ideal, suffered and dear - liberation and unification of all Bulgarian territories.
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................5
CHAPTER ONE
IMRO Establishment and Activity in the Pirin region (1919-1924)............................8
1. IMRO resuming and converting it into a supporting organization.
Initial activities....................................................................................................................................8
2. IMRO and all Bulgarians’ political struggles...........................................................31
3. IMRO crisis and imposed stabilization of the Pirin supporting base..................54
Notes to Chapter one ................................................................................................78
CHAPTER TWO
IMRO State in the Bulgarian South-West (1925-1928)...........................................90
1. Preparation for the new stage of organizational administration........................90
2. IMRO forensic and criminal activity..................................................................107
3. IMRO new tax system in the Third Bulgarian Kingdom...................................227
4. IMRO armed forces in the Pirin region ............................................................141
Notes to chapter two ...............................................................................................164
CHAPTER THREE
The Liberation Movement of Macedonian Bulgarians in the Petrich region
(1928-1934)........................................................................................................................175
1. Macedonian parliamentary group – IMRO legal manifestation......................175
2. Militant institute or IMRO people‘s army in Bulgarian.......................................192
3. IMRO cultural and economic construction.............................................................206
4. Great Macedonian convention and the end of organizational regime..............217
Notes to Chapter three .....................................................................................................237
CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................249
SUMMARY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE........................................................................256