ÿþ<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-gb"> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 5.0"> <meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=unicode"> <title>M. MacDermott - Yane Sandansky - 3</title> <style> <!-- p.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-autospace:none; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; margin-left:0pt; margin-right:0pt; margin-top:0pt} --> </style> </head> <body> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white" align="left"> <b> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <font size="4">FOR FREEDOM AND PERFECTION. </font></span><i> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <font size="4">The Life of Yané Sandansky</font></span></i></b><font size="4"><br> <b>Mercia MacDermott </b></span></font> </p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black; font-weight: 700"> 3. DUPNITSA</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white">&nbsp;</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> The Turks called Dupnitsa Gümüs Deré Silver Valley, not because there were any silver mines in the area, but because of the riches that passed through the town along the road that led from Salonika to Sofia and the north. Its Bulgarian name may have been derived either from <i>dub, </i>meaning an oaktree, or from <i> dupka, </i>meaning a hole, for the town is situated at the foot of the mighty Rila Mountains, where the valley of the River Dzherman a tributary of the Struma narrows into a gorge. Three other rivers also flow through Dupnitsa, helping to keep it clean and providing its citizens with ample water. Warm air, coming up the valley of the Struma from the Aegean, give it a pleasant climate without extremes of hot and cold.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> Outside the town, there were excellent pastures for cattle, sheep and goats, and, to the south especially, where the valley widened, there were fields and gardens, where grain, vegetables, tobacco, grapes and other fruit flourished. Local cherries were much sought after in Sofia, and pears, too, were taken to the market there by donkey. The Bulgarian townsfolk practised a number of crafts, including tailoring, shoemaking, carpentry, saddle-making, tanning and rope-making, while the gypsies, who had their own quarter in the town, earned a living as blacksmiths, tinkers, musicians, horse-dealers, and makers of baskets, spindles, sieves and other oddments, which their womenfolk sold from door to door, as well as begging and telling fortunes.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> Although most of the Turks had left, Dupnitsa did not change radically in outward appearance for the next twenty-five years or so. It was situated too near the frontier for comfort; trade was slack, and there was little money for grand reconstruction. Indeed, the town almost missed getting the teacher-training school which the Ministry of Education wanted to open for young refugees from Macedonia, because the Municipality was too poor to purchase the only suitable site the so-called Kargali <i>konak, </i>a walled complex of buildings belonging to a rich Turkish family, and there was a real danger that the school, which was to include accommodation for boarders, would have to be opened in another town. The situation was saved by a philanthropic Turk, named Bekir Efendi, who had returned to dispose of his own property in Dupnitsa and that of the Kargali heirs, to whom he was related. Bekir made an outright gift of the <i>konak </i>to the town, before retiring across the frontier to Sveti Vrach (now Sandansky),</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span><img border="0" src="line_down.gif" width="596" height="18"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <font size="2">27</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> and the grateful citizens of Dupnitsa named a street after him, for this was not the first time that they had had cause to bless the name of Bekir Efendi. More than once, before the liberation, Bekir had managed to dissuade his more fanatical fellowcountrymen, as well as the wild Circassians, from engaging in open pre-emptive terror against the Bulgarians, especially after the April Rising, when many Turks wanted to attack everything Christian before the Christians could attack them. <a href="#1.">[1]</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> Thus, until after 1900, when Dupnitsa became a garrison town, and the population began to feel more secure, the town remained much as it had been in Turkish times, with its higgledy-piddledy lay-out, its narrow, twisting streets some too narrow for two carts to pass each other, its one-storey houses, built of sun-dried bricks, reinforced with planks, and its tiny shops with wide eaves and shuttered glassless windows. The main street was cobbled with river stones, and had a gutter down the middle to carry away rain and the water from constantly flowing fountains, which were to be found outside mosques and rich houses. Only the business quarter the <i>cbarshiya</i> was<i> </i>in any way lit, and this only with tallow candles in tin lanterns, or kerosine lamps on wooden posts a hundred paces or so apart.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> The new Bulgarian administration, however, soon changed the old Turkish names of the quarters, renaming them after Major Orlinsky, Tsar Alexander of Russia, the mediaeval Bulgarian Tsars Samuil and Boris, and so forth. Only the Beshik quarter high up between the Bistritsa and its left branch, the Bokludzha, in the south-eastern part of the town-was left with its original Turkish name, which means  cradle .</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> After the Kresna Rising, the Beshik quarter became a centre for Bulgarian refugees from Macedonia, who bought up houses left vacant by the Turks, and it was here that the Sandansky family established itself in a little house consisting of one single dark room, with wooden lattices barring the windows. The taverns of the Beshik were full of <i>haramii</i> <a href="#2.">[2]</a>  colourful individuals, who, at best, were half<i>-haidut </i>half<i>-komita</i> <a href="#3.">[3]</a> and, at worst, were almost wholly bandit. The wooden posts which supported the roofs of these inns were scarred and notched by yataghans which these characters would wave when they sang songs and told tales about heroic deeds. They would swagger about the streets, dressed in exotic costumes, and would swing their ornamental sleeves as they went from tavern to tavern, making plans for raids into Turkish territory. Each spring, they would cross the frontier in little bands to harry the Turks, and enrich themselves with booty often at the expense of the population rather than</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="1."><font size="2">1.</font></a></b><font size="2"> See Nikola Lazarkov, Opus cit., pp. 88-99 and 110-112.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="2."><font size="2">2.</font></a></b><font size="2"> <i>Haramiya </i>(pl: haramii) means a brigand, or an outlaw with little political motivation.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="3."><font size="2">3.</font></a></b><font size="2"> <i>Haidut</i> an outlaw fighting the Turks, usually for motives of personal vengeance. <i>Komita</i> a revolutionary belonging to a secret committee, and waging armed struggle against the Turks.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span><img border="0" src="line_down.gif" width="596" height="18"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <font size="2">28</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> the oppressor. The citizens of Dupnitsa took little notice of them, but they doubtless made a great impression upon the children. With a <i>chetnik </i> father at home, and with <i>haramii </i>strutting along the street outside, it would have been strange if Yané had grown up to be anything else except a rebel. He himself says in his memoirs that, even as a small boy, when he and his playmates would throw stones at each other in mock battle, he always took the role of a <i>komita</i>. <a href="#4.">[4]</a> One of his childhood friends remembers him as an  unruly, agile, sturdy boy, much admired and sought after by his peers, who deemed it a privilege to be accepted into his  gang . <a href="#5.">[5]</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> Yané had inherited both his father s sterness of character and his sense of justice, and, even as a child, he could not bear to see dishonesty go unpunished. There was a pedlar who sold <i>halva </i>and <i>boza </i>(a thick drink made from millet) in the school yard and frequently cheated the children by alleging that they had not paid when they had. Once the pedlar tried this trick on Yané s class-mate Dimitmr Angelov Kirov in Yané s presence, and, when the man persisted in saying that Dimitmr had not paid, Yané flew into a rage, seized the tray of <i>halva, </i>broke it over the man s head, and then flung the metal can of <i>boza </i>at him. The gentler side of Yané s nature found expression in the raising of doves, and, after school, when he was not fighting and playing at <i>komiti, </i>he would spend hours of his free time caring for his birds. <a href="#6.">[6]</a> It showed, too, in his love for his parents. His letters to them, written in later life, are full of tenderness and concern for their well-being. A photograph of himself which he sent to them from Sofia in 1904 is inscribed:  To my unforgettable parents, I leave my likeness for consolation at the thought that I am far away from them. Sofia, 12.III.1904. From their eternally grateful son, Yanéto. <a href="#7.">[7]</a> As soon as he was earning money, he began buying modest things for the home, such as proper cups, plates, spoons and forks, which his parents, as refugees scraping and saving in order to buy a little land and a couple of cows, had not been able to afford. Hitherto, the family had to make do with wooden spoons. <a href="#8.">[8]</a> In time, the Sandanskys acquired a neighbouring two-storeyed house, with a shop on the ground floor. This house was used by Yané and the family of his elder brother, Todor, which consisted of his wife, Vangya, and their three children, Vesa, Slavka and Ivan. The old people continued to live in the one-roomed house, where the furnishings were of the simplest: wooden seats along the walls, hand-woven rugs and cushions, an iron stove and a few shelves. Both houses stood in a courtyard, scrupulously swept and clean, and decorated with box-trees and</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="4."><font size="2">4.</font></a></b><font size="2"> Miletich, Vol. VII, p. 11.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="5."><font size="2">5.</font></a></b><font size="2"> Memoirs of Kostadin Zlatkov Stoyanov, OIM Blagoevgrad No. 547.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="6."><font size="2">6.</font></a></b><font size="2"> See Yurdan Anastasov, <i>Spomen za Yané Sandansky, </i>(kept in the Central Archives of the Bulgarian Communist Party in Sofia), pp. 9-10. The story of the pedlar was told to Anastasov by Kitov s son, Krum. The Kitovs were relatives of Ilyo </font> <i><font size="2">Voivoda.</font></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="7."><font size="2">7.</font></a></b><font size="2"> The photograph referred to is in the Blagoevgrad Museum, archive number 853. </font> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="8."><font size="2">8.</font></a></b><font size="2"> See Yurdan Anastasov, <i>Spomen za Yané Sandansky, </i>p. 7.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span><img border="0" src="line_down.gif" width="596" height="18"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <font size="2">29</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> roses. There was also a garden, full of flowers and vegetables, kept fresh and green with water from a runnel which flowed beside it. Drinking water was brought from a public fountain on the nearby square, where the whole neighbourhood would gather on high-days and holidays to dance the <i>horo. </i>A barn, with a stable for a cow or two, completed the family  estate . <a href="#9.">[9]</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> Poverty forced Yané to leave school after completing only two years of post-elementary education, and he was apprenticed to a shoemaker. In 1892, he was called up for the two-year period of military service which then, as now, was a compulsory feature in the life of every Bulgarian boy. <a href="#10.">[10]</a> He spent his two years in the Thirteenth Regiment, which was siationed in Kyustendil, and he was demobilized in 1894 with the rank of corporal.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> It was not long before Yané put his military training to practical use. Most big towns in the Bulgarian Principality had among their population a fair sprinkling of refugees from Macedonia, and all Bulgarians regardless i if where they were born still felt strongly about the injustice of the Treaty of Berlin. In the spring of 1895, this public concern led to the setting up of a Macedonian Committee <a href="#11.">[11]</a> in Sofia, with branches in other towns, and during the summer the new committee organized a number of <i>cheti, </i>which crossed into Macedonia to harass the Turks and prepare the ground for an eventual uprising. The action received temporary approval and even encouragement from the Bulgarian Government and Prince Ferdinand, for whom unrest in Macedonia served as a convenient lever in their current diplomatic moves to achieve international recognition for Prince Ferdinand, and other political objectives involving Turkey and the Great Powers.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> In Dupnitsa these developments aroused much excitement. A local Macedonian committee was set up, with Kostadin Zmiyarev, a lawyer from Strumitsa, as its chairman, and committees were also formed in the local villages. People of all kinds <i>haramii, </i>seasoned rebels, and young people flocked to join the <i> cheti, </i>and dressed themselves up in rebel garb white <i>fustanelli </i> (Greek-style kilts), jackets with trailing ornamental sleeves, and black fur hats with golden lion emblems.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> Yané joined a large <i>cheta</i>, <a href="#12.">[12]</a> consisting of some 200 men, under the command of twelve officers and a veteran <i>haramiya </i>Stoyo from the village of Skrizhovo (Drama district) who, after nine seasons experience</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="9."><font size="2">9.</font></a></b><font size="2"> Information taken from the written memoirs of Stefan Stoyanov Bozhdovsky, kept in the Museum in Stanké Dimitrov (formerly Dupnitsa). </font> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="10."><font size="2">10.</font></a></b><font size="2"> Boys were then called up at the age of 20, not 18 as today.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="11."><font size="2">11.</font></a></b><font size="2"> In the present volume, the history of the foundation and development of the Macedonian committees is only briefly sketched. A more detailed account can be found in Mercia MacDermott, <i>Freedom or Death. The Life of Gotsé Delchev, </i> The Journeyman Press, London, 1978.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="12."><font size="2">12.</font></a></b><font size="2"> The Macedonian Committee in Sofia organized four large <i>cheti </i>and several smaller ones, with a total of about 800 men, with forty officers and a number of </font> <i><font size="2">voivodi.</font></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span><img border="0" src="line_down.gif" width="596" height="18"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <font size="2">30</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> as an outlaw in Macedonia, had settled in Dupnitsa. <i>Haramii </i>like Stoyo were included in the <i>cheti </i>because of their intimate knowledge of the areas to be entered, but, in other respects, they proved to be a liability rather than an asset, for, in spite of solemn vows to the contrary, they frequently forgot themselves and reverted to banditry in defiance of the Committee s injunctions to pay for all food taken from the population and to respect the lives and property of peaceful Turks.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> Stoyo s <i>cheta </i>set off via the Rila Monastery for the frontier, which then ran along the high ridges of the Rila Mountains. Officially the <i>cheta </i>was named the Serres <i>cheta, </i>since its objective was the Serres district, which lay well to the south of both Rila and Pirin, but the officers showed little inclination for venturing into the interior of Macedonia, and the <i> cheta </i>dawdled about in the frontier area, and then set out for the village of Dospat (Yanakli), which they burnt. Since the village was inhabited by Muslims (albeit of Bulgarian origin), the Turkish authorities made much international capital out of the incident, and horror stories appeared in Western newspapers, alleging the indiscriminate massacre by Bulgarian officers of hundreds of defenceless villagers. According to Yané s own memoirs, only a few Muslims were killed incidentally, and there was no question of mass slaughter. <a href="#13.">[13]</a> James Bourchier, the <i>Times </i>correspondent, who carried out an on-the-spot investigation, confirms Yané s statement. He established that, while the greater part of the village and a large number of cattle had been destroyed by the fire, only some forty of the 1,500 inhabitants had actually died. <a href="#14.">[14]</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> After this pointless and inglorious operation, the <i>cheta </i>disintegrated, and its members returned to the Principality, where it was officially disbanded. According to a <i>Times </i>report, it was pursued by troops from Devlin and civilians from neighbouring Muslim villages, who killed 30 <i>chetnitsi </i>and captured a further 13. <i>(The Times</i> September 12 1895). Another <i>cheta </i>was less fortunate and lost almost half its number killed in clashes with the Turks. A third, under Lt Boris Sarafov, went as far as the southern foothills of Pirin, and attacked the town of Melnik, after which the <i>haramiya </i>element in the <i>cheta </i>broke away and went off separately to plunder a Greek monastery. This <i>cheta, </i>too, clashed with Turkish regulars and had to fight its way back to the Principality.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> Despite the disappointment caused by the undisciplined behaviour of the <i> haramii </i>and the lack of any real positive result, the returning <i>cheti </i> were greeted with great enthusiasm by the Macedonian Committee. Those who had taken part were each given an impressive certificate, decorated with the lion emblem, banners, portraits of Traicho Kitanchev (the Chairman of the Committee) and others, a drawing of an armed rebel, the</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="13."><font size="2">13.</font></a></b><font size="2"> Miletich, Vol. VII, p. 12.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="14."><font size="2">14.</font></a></b><font size="2"> <i>The Times, </i>10 and 12.XI.1895.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span><img border="0" src="line_down.gif" width="596" height="18"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <font size="2">31</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> slogan  Freedom or Death and the seal of the Committee in Sofia. <a href="#15.">[15]</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> Yané returned to Dupnitsa somewhat bewildered, but more determined than ever to inform himself in detail about what he called  the Cause . But although, during the following year, 1896, he learnt that, in addition to the Supreme <a href="#16.">[16]</a> Committee in Sofia, there was some kind of revolutionary organization in Macedonia itself, he was still unable to gain a clear picture of what was going on and what had to be done. Thus, in 1897, following the outbreak of war between Greece and Turkey, he again joined a <i>cheta, </i>lured by two officers, Captains Venedikov and Morfov, who said:  You go into Macedonia now and then we will move. By  we Yané understood the Bulgarian Army. A <i>cheta </i>was formed under the leadership of Krmsto Zahariev, a close friend of Stoyo s. Krmsto was from a village near Serres and had fled to Dupnitsa, where he worked as a butcher. The <i>cheta, </i>numbering between 25 and 30 men, was armed with  martinki and  bedanki rifles provided by the two officers. Yané, however, bought his own rifle from the Ivanov Brothers arms merchants who were active in the Macedonian movement in Sofia and he joined the <i>cheta </i>as it left Dupnitsa.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> This time the <i>cheta </i>went deeper into enemy-held territory, and thus Yané adult but still relatively inexperienced returned to the land of his early childhood and saw again his native Pirin.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> Never was mortal queen so sumptuously attired as this queen among mountains. Never was brocade so rich as the wondrous foliage of her lorests, nor lace so white and intricate as the cascades that foam amid her rocks. Never had mortal queen jewels that were brighter than the rainbow flowers of Pirin, nor diadems that could match her lightning and her stars. Yet for all her beauty, it is a feeling of awe rather than admiration that Pirin awakens in the heart of man. Soaring pinnacles of rock, wraith-like in swirling mist, or standing sentinel against a sapphire sky; stone-strewn precipices plunging into crystal lakes that feed on snowdrifts; high valleys that resemble battlefields where giants have fought a war of attrition hurling trees and boulders at each other until all were slain; winds that ran now down forest trees in swaths as though they were blades of grass; storms that can turn dry hillsides into raging torrents and bury summer meadows inches deep in hail: heights, depths and forces that dwarf the works of man this is Pirin, ineffably beautiful and inexorably stern. Here all is pure and stark. Here all pretence is stripped away, and men are seen for what they are: stalwarts or weaklings, egoists or comrades, wisemen or fools. And, according to their separate characters, they leave the mountain chastened and spurned, or strengthened and enriched.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> Krtisto and his <i>cheta </i>criss-crossed the wooded ridges of central Pirin</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="15."><font size="2">15.</font></a></b><font size="2"> See Asen Medzhidiev, <i>Istoriya na grad Stanke Dimitrov (Dupnitsa) i pokraininata inn ot XIV vek to 1912-1963, </i>1969, p. 87.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="16."><font size="2">16.</font></a></b><font size="2"> At its Congress in December 1895, The Macedonian Committee had added the word  Supreme to its official name.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span><img border="0" src="line_down.gif" width="596" height="18"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <font size="2">32</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> above the village that bore the mountain s name. Twice they clashed with Turkish troops and waged day-long battles without loss of life on the side of the <i> cheta, </i>first against some 150 soldiers and then against a larger force of some 250. In the next engagement, they were not so lucky: near the village of Lopovo, they were surprised by Turks, who killed one <i>chetnik </i>and wounded Yané in the arm below the left elbow. It was decided that he should be sent back to the Principality for treatment, and his older brother, Todor, who was also a member of the <i>cheta, </i>was asked to escort him. Todor, however, had been against Yané s joining the<i> cheta </i>in the first place, and refused, saying,  Let those who brought him here take him back. <a href="#17.">[17]</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> On his return to the Principality, Yané was arrested as a <i>haramiya, </i>and, after he had admitted having been in Turkey carrying arms, an order was issued for him to be interned in the interior of the Principality, away from the frontier, as an unreliable person. The Dupnitsa police, however, took pity on him, and allowed him to remain in hospital on bail, until he had completely recovered, lest his arm be permanently affected. <a href="#18.">[18]</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> So Yané settled down again in Dupnitsa, to nurse his wound and to take stock of the situation. He had been well and truly initiated into the ways and rigours of <i>cheta </i>life, even to the point of shedding his own blood, and he now possessed the scars without which, according to Bulgarian proverbs, no would-be <i>yunak</i> <a href="#19.">[19]</a> can be taken seriously. Yet, when he considered what the<i> cheta </i>had actually achieved in terms of the struggle for freedom, he found himself more bewildered than ever. The whole exercise seemed pointless and even suspect. There had been no response of any kind from Bulgaria, other than the unwelcome attentions of the police, and the positive results had been nil. Yané s conclusions took the form of a decision:  Until I have understood how the Cause stands, whether or not there is an organization in the interior, and so forth, I am not going to be anyone s tool I am not going to budge from now on. <a href="#20.">[20]</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> During this period of waiting and wondering, Yané turned his energies to cultural affairs. Despite his humble background and scanty formal</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="17."><font size="2">17.</font></a></b><font size="2"> See memoirs of Georgi Kotsev. OIM (Regional Historical Museum) Blagoevgrad. Archive number: 1680, p. 35.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="18."><font size="2">18.</font></a></b><font size="2"> See letter from Dupnitsa District Police <i>(Dupnisbko okoliisko upravlenie) </i>to the First Dupnitsa Justice of the Peace <i>(Pmrvi dupnishki mirovi smdiya), </i>May 6 1898. OIM Blagoevgrad, Archive number 1108. The unpublished diary of Alexander Mladzhov contains the following entry for Sept. 30 1898:  I went to the station for Sofia with Sandansky, who is going there so that the doctors (military) can examine him and release him, because his left arm was crippled during the rising of 1896. Presumably, Yani was seeking release from further military service in the Reserve. The date of the  rising should be 1897. The diary is in the possession of Engineer Stefan Miloshov, in Sofia.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="19."><font size="2">19.</font></a></b><font size="2"> <i>Yunak </i>has no single-word English equivalent. It means a  brave young man , who is usually a fighter against injustice and oppression.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="20."><font size="2">20.</font></a></b><font size="2"> Miletich, vol. VII, p. 13.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span><img border="0" src="line_down.gif" width="596" height="18"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <font size="2">33</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> education, Yané was essentially an intellectual, and it was to other intellectuals and to intellectual work that he was drawn. Indeed, his real education began after he had left school, for he became a voracious reader and a lover of books. Thus, when he left the Army, he abandoned his half-learned trade of shoemaking and went to work as an assistant scrivener in i he office of his lawyer uncle, Spas Harizanov, and, after two and a half years, he set up on his own, still as a scrivener. For part of the time, he acted as parish clerk in the nearby village of Balanovo, and his signature appears on a number of birth-certificates issued in 1895. <a href="#21.">[21]</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> Yané s personal library came to include such varied books as Moliere s <i> Tartuffe; Leo Tolstoy as an Artist and Thinker </i>by A. Skabichevsky; <i>The Origin of Language </i>by Ernest Renan; <i>The Eighteenth of Brumaire, </i>by Karl Marx; <i>Anarchism and Socialism, </i>by Plehanov; <i>Lectures in Economics </i>(a popular account of political economy by G.F. Fichev and others); <i>Ada Negri </i>by M.V. Watson; <i>Raphael His Life and His Artistic Activity, </i>by S.M. Briliant; <i>N.V. Gogol His Life and Literary Activity, b</i>y A.N. Annenska; <i>Manon Lescaut; Confessions of an enfant du siècle, </i>by Alfred de Musset; and <i>Considerations on Representative Government</i>, by John Stuart Mill. There were books on education and medical matters: <i>On Self-culture, Intellectual, Physical and Moral, </i>by J. Blackie; <i>The Significance of Authority in Upbringing </i>by N.A. Dobrolyubov; <i>Upbringing and Training in the Family and School </i>by Elitsky, and two volumes a novel and a scientific work dealing with venereal diseases.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> At an early age, like most young Bulgarians of his day, Yané read <i>Under the Yoke </i>Ivan Vazov s classical novel about life in a small town on the eve of the April Rising of 1876, as well as Zahari Stoyanov s <i>Notes on the Bulgarian Risings</i> an<i> </i>equally lively documentary account of the same period, including the Rising itself. But the book which made the greatest impression upon the adolescent Yané was Zahari Stoyanov s biography of Vasil Levsky, the creator of the organized internal movement for national liberation. Anyone who has read the book can easily visualize the impact which it must have had upon a boy growing up in an atmosphere of poverty and rebellion a few miles from the artificial frontier which had made him a refugee. Zahari Stoyanov s book is not merely the biography of a revolutionary; it is in itself a revolutionary book, breathing hatred not only for the traditional Turkish oppressors, but also for the rich Conservative Bulgarians and for the older generation that stands in the way of the young. It is written in a racy, conversational style, with interpolations in which the author addresses the reader directly, inciting him id struggle against everything that is false and outmoded, be it Turkish or Bulgarian in origin.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> The liberation of Bulgaria had, alas, not led to the creation of the  Pure and Sacred Republic of which Levsky had dreamed. Not only had</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="21."><font size="2">21.</font></a></b><font size="2"> See article by Slavcho Tasev, <i>Pirinsko Delo, </i>27.V.1982.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span><img border="0" src="line_down.gif" width="596" height="18"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <font size="2">34</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> the Great Powers torn the Bulgarian nation limb from limb, but they had imposed upon that part which had achieved independence a foreign monarchy, with its roots outside the country and its thinking at variance with the national spirit. Most of the active idealists had fallen in the struggle for freedom, and, under Alexander of Battenberg and Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, the political and economic life of Bulgaria was dominated by go-getting careerists from the ranks of the nouveau-rich bourgeoisie-bankers, merchants and industrialists. Politics became an increasingly violent and dirty game, as the Liberals split into several warring splinter parties, and friends and even families fell out over the question of Russian influence versus German and Austrian influence in Bulgaria. <a href="#22.">[22]</a> In Dupnitsa, where most people supported one or another branch of the Liberal Party, politics were particularly violent and dirty. In September 1886, during the elections for a Grand National Assembly (to elect a new Prince, following the abdication of Alexander), Dupnitsa witnessed scenes of appalling violence, culminating in the murder of the Russophobe Government candidates and the district chief of police. <a href="#23.">[23]</a> Of the 164 people arrested, 71 were later put on trial in Kyustendil, and 58 of these received sentences for their part in the outrage. <a href="#24.">[24]</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> During the premiership or rather dictatorship of the Russophobe Stefan Stambolov (1887-1894), political terror intensified. Some citizens of Dupnitsa were forced to emigrate; one leading Russophil politician even fled over the Turkish border to Gorna Dzhumaya. In the Dupnitsa area, the situation was exacerbated by banditry, which produced a crop of robberies, kidnappings and murders. Some of those responsible were bandits pure and simple, while others were <i>haramii. </i>After the fall of Stambolov, power passed into the hands of the Russophil Conservatives, led by Konstantin Stoïlov, whose supporters pledged to restore constitutional rights, law and justice flung themselves into the twin tasks of combatting and even physically eliminating their political opponents, and of making personal hay while the sun of office shone upon them. It was during Stoïlov s administration that Prince Ferdinand, taking advantage of the partisan rivalries that existed among Bulgarian politicians, con-</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="22."><font size="2">22. </font></a></b><font size="2">After the settlement in Berlin, the struggle between the Great Powers for influence in the Balkans continued unabated. In Bulgaria, the rising capitalist class tended to look to the West, for economic reasons, and an additional factor in the case was the choice of first a German Prince, Alexander of Battenberg, and then an Austrian one Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg as rulers of the Principality. On the other hand, some conservatives, as well as most of the peasantry and petty townsfolk remained pro-Russian, since Tsarist Russia objectively one of the world s most reactionary states was revered as a liberator by the ordinary Bulgarian, who, though democratic and even republican in outlook, was, for subtle historical reasons, prepared to overlook the darker side of Tsarist policy.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="23."><font size="2">23.</font></a></b><font size="2"> He had previously arrested the Opposition leaders, who had attempted to prevent the elections taking place.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="24."><font size="2">24.</font></a></b><font size="2"> See Asen Medzhidiev, Opus Cit., pp. 132-135.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span><img border="0" src="line_down.gif" width="596" height="18"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <font size="2">35</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> solidated his personal power and began to play an increasingly important role in shaping policy both at home and in foreign affairs.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> In Dupnitsa, Stoïlov s party was represented by Dimirmr Radev, who, as the town s mayor and deputy to the National Assembly, proposed and disposed in all municipal matters, assisted by a loyal caucus of wealthy citizens, whose disregard for democracy rivalled his own. Dupnitsa was not a prosperous town, but the relatively few rich some of whom were refugees from Gorna Dzhumaya were getting richer, while the poor were getting poorer. Under Stambolov, some citizens had succeeded in accumulating capital, which they invested mainly in the tobacco industry, cruelly exploiting both producers and processing workers; others, both Bulgarians and Jews, went in for usury, while still others had become large-scale land-owners. In Turkish times, the land had been mainly in Turkish hands, and it had then passed into the hands of rich Bulgarians. There was thus insufficient land available to the Bulgarian peasants, who were forced to seek jobs as hired labourers, or to move into the town, where they swelled the ranks of the urban poor. The traditional handicrafts, together with the old forms of guild organization, were disappearing in the face of capitalist development, and the general misery was made worse by a number of natural disasters, such as the floods of 1897, several years of bad harvests, phyloxera, cattle disease, etc. The first workers strike in Dupnitsa took place in 1898, when tailors employed by Samuil Levi struck for higher wages. There were as yet no trade-unions in Bulgaria, and the strike failed because there was a shortage of tailors able to make western-style garments, as opposed to the traditional costumes, and thus there were plenty of old-style tailors eager to  black-leg and re-qualify themselves at the expense of the strikers.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> The concentration of power in the hands of aging, conservative forces was deeply resented by the young people of Dupnitsa, who began to demand a voice in public affairs. The most active among them were strongly influenced by the ideas of the Russian Narodniks, who laid great stress on the role of the revolutionary intelligentsia and the  critical individual in the struggle for political freedom and social justice. For this reason, the fight was waged primarily in the sphere of cultural activity. At first, the young people concentrated their efforts on trying to gain control of the town s <i>chitalishté, </i>or reading-room club. <a href="#25.">[25]</a> The Dupnitsa <i>chitalishté </i>was the of the oldest in Bulgaria, and had been founded in 1858, only two years after the prosperous citizens of Svishtov <a href="#26.">[26]</a> had pioneered the whole idea. Around 1875 the Dupnitsa <i>chitalishté </i>had fallen on hard times, and</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="25."><font size="2">25.</font></a></b><font size="2"> The <i>chitalishté </i>is a unique Bulgarian institution, supported by voluntary contributions in money and services, and combining the functions of a library and&nbsp; community centre, where all kinds of activities from lectures to amateur theatricals are organized. </font> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="26."><font size="2">26.</font></a></b><font size="2"> Svishtov is a town on the Danube, and was then a particularly thriving commercial centre.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> &nbsp;</span><img border="0" src="line_down.gif" width="596" height="18"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <font size="2">36</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> its activity more or less ceased until after the Liberation, when it was revived and its original name <i>Zora </i>(Dawn) was changed to <i>Napredmk </i> (Progress).</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> The influx of refugees from Macedonia many of them energetic and genuinely public-spirited people had stirred and revitalized the town, but, despite its name, the <i>chitalishté </i>had failed to move with the times, and it did not meet the needs of the wide-awake youth which was not surprising since its chairman was none other than the ubiquitous conservative, Dimitmr Radev. The young people attempted to gain control of the <i>chitalishté, </i>and, having failed to do so, they finally set up a society of their own in the summer of 1897.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> The new society was called <i>Mladost </i><a href="#27.">[27]</a> (Youth), and, according to its Constitution, membership was open to all young people under 36 and over 20. It had its own budget and opened a reading-room club, where lectures and social evenings were held, and which soon became a meeting place for the young men of Dupnitsa. The Society announced that it would work to raise both the intellectual and moral standards of its members, and to develop solidarity among them, and that it would give material help to poorer members and those in financial difficulties through unemployment, illness, military service, etc. One of the most striking undertakings of the Society was the drawing up, in the autumn of 1897, of a set of rules for betrothals, weddings, etc., the main aim of which was to do away with archaic customs which no longer had any significance for young people, and to limit expenditure to the purchase of essentials, so that families were not ruined by over-lavish weddings. When all was said and done, the members of <i>Mladost </i>declared, the future happiness of a married couple depended upon their mutual love and personal qualities, and not on extravagant wedding customs. Thus, the engagement ring was not to cost more than 50 <i>stotinki, </i>and, between the engagement and the wedding, the bridegroom was to limit his presents to the bride to a modest quantity of fruit. There were to be no silken dresses, with expensive accessories, such as white shoes and gloves, but, instead, brides were to wear serviceable woollen dresses and leather shoes, which they could subsequently use again. Various unnecessary preliminary customs and processions, which entailed the hiring of musicians, were also outlawed, as was the traditional presentation of gifts from the bride to all the wedding guests, and certain silly or humiliating post-wedding customs, including the serving of  sweet <i>rakiya </i>to visitors after the bride had proved to be a virgin. All the members of <i>Mladost </i>agreed to accept the new rules and to encourage young people throughout Bulgaria to follow their example.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <b><a name="27."><font size="2">27.</font></a></b><font size="2"> Details about the Society and its activities can be found in the Archive of Ivan Harizanov, in the State Historical Archives in Sofia, TDIA f. 1508, op. 2, a.e. 17. Also see <i>Vmzpomenatelen sbornik  Druzhestvo Mladost </i>(Memorial Anthology, <i>Mladost </i>Society), 1858-94-1936. Article by P. Gyoliev.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span><img border="0" src="line_down.gif" width="596" height="18"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> <font size="2">37</font></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: Palatino Linotype; color: black"> The prime mover behind these proposals was Ivan Dimitrov, <a href="#28.">[28]</a> a teacher much influenced by Narodnik-style Socialism, but they at once received the support of most of the young people of Dupnitsa, including some of the spoilt children of the richer citizens. Ivan Dimitrov, was a gifted orator, and, when he spoke against the regime and the town council, even quite young children would go to hear him. Although the Society was not party-political most of its members were radically minded and fell increasingly under the influence of the Socialist teachers who were its driving force. This state of affairs was typical of Bulgaria at that time, and for many years to come. Everywhere, school-teachers enjoyed immense prestige in the eyes of the community, and the majority of them were Socialists of one kind or another. <a href="#29.">[29]</a> In Dupnitsa, teachers formed the backbone of the town s first Socialist circle, set up in 1896.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white"> <span style="font-size: 12.0p