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Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising
A map of the uprising in the regions of Macedonia and Thrace. Present-day borders are visible, together with Ottoman frontiers at the time.
Date 2 August 1903 – November 1903 Location Manastir (Bitola), Adrianople, Salonica, and Kosovo vilayets of the Ottoman Empire Result Suppression of the uprising. 30,000 refugees flee to Bulgaria.
Belligerents
IMARO SMAC	Ottoman Empire
Commanders and leaders
Dame Gruev Boris Sarafov Nikola Karev Georgi Sugarev Mihail Gerdzhikov Lazar Madzharov Stamat Ikonomov Ivan Tsonchev (Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee)	Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha Omer Ruchidi Pasha
Strength
26,408 (IMARO figures)	350,931 (IMARO figures)
Casualties and losses
IMARO figures: 994 insurgents killed or wounded 4,694 civilians killed 3,122 girls and women raped 176 girls and women kidnapped 12,440 houses burned 70,835 people left homeless	5328 wounded or killed (IMARO figures)

The Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising, or simply the Ilinden Uprising of August - October 1903 (Template:Lang-bg, Ilindensko-Preobražensko vǎstanie; Template:Lang-mk, Ilindensko vostanie; Template:Lang-el, Eksegersi tou Ilinden), was an organized revolt against the Ottoman Empire, which was prepared and carried out by the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization, with the support of the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee. The name of the uprising refers to Ilinden, a name for Elijah's day, and to Preobrazhenie which means Transfiguration. The revolt lasted from the beginning of August to the end of October and covered a vast territory from the eastern Black Sea coast to the shores of Lake Ohrid.

The rebellion in the region of Macedonia affected most of the central and southwestern parts of the Monastir Vilayet receiving the support mainly of the local Bulgarian peasants, and to some extent of the Aromanian population of the region. Provisional government was established in the town of Kruševo, where the insurgents proclaimed the Kruševo Republic, which was overrun after just ten days, on August 12. On August 19, a closely related uprising organized by Bulgarian peasants in the Adrianople Vilayet led to the liberation of a large area in the Strandzha Mountains, and the creation of a provisional government in Vassiliko, the Strandzha Republic. This lasted about twenty days before being put down by the Turks. The insurrection engulfed also the vilayets of Kosovo and Salonika.

By the time the rebellion had started, many of its most promising potential leaders, including Ivan Garvanov and Gotse Delchev, had already been arrested or killed by the Ottomans, and the effort was quashed within a couple of months. The survivors managed to maintain a guerrilla campaign against the Turks for the next few years, but its greater effect was that it persuaded the European powers to attempt to convince the Ottoman sultan that he must take a more conciliatory attitude toward his Christian subjects in Europe.

Prelude

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At the turn of the 20th century, the Ottoman Empire was crumbling, and the lands they had held in Eastern Europe for over 500 years were passing to new rulers. Macedonia and Thrace were regions of indefinite boundaries, adjacent to the recently independent Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian states, but themselves still under the control of the Ottoman Turks. Each of the neighbouring states based claims to Macedonia and Thrace on various historical and ethnic composition grounds. But the population was highly mixed (mostly Macedonian), and the competing historical claims were based on various empires in the distant past. The competition for control took place largely by means of propaganda campaigns, aimed at winning over the local population, and took place largely through the churches and schools. Various groups of mercenaries were also supported, by the local population and by the three competing governments.

The most effective group was the Internal Macedonian-Adrianopolitan Revolutionary Organization (IMARO), founded in Thessaloniki in 1893. The group had a number of name changes prior to and subsequent to the uprising. It was predominantly Macedonian and Bulgarian and supported an idea for autonomy for Macedonia and Adrianople regions within the Ottoman state with a motto of "Macedonia for the Macedonians". It rapidly began to be infiltrated by members of Macedonian Supreme Committee, a group formed in 1894 in Sofia, Bulgaria. This group was called the Supremists, and advocated independency of Macedonia .

Since the term autonomy was regularly used in relation to the Macedonian Question, it is essential to note its sense and reason. Its inspiration certainly belonged to the nineteenth-century Balkan practice whereby the powers maintained the fiction of Ottoman control over effectively independent states under the guise of autonomous status within the Ottoman state; (Serbia, 1829–1878; Romania, 1829–1878; Bulgaria, 1878–1908). Autonomy, in other words, was as good as independence. Moreover, from the Macedonian perspective, the goal of independence by autonomy had another advantage. More important, IMARO was aware that neither Serbia nor Greece could expect to obtain the whole of Macedonia and, unlike Bulgaria, they both looked forward to and urged partition. Autonomy, then, was the best prophylactic against partition, that would preserve the Macedonian character of Christian Macedonian Slav population. The idea of Macedonian autonomy was strictly political and did not imply a secession from Bulgarian ethnicity.

The two groups had different strategies. IMARO as originally conceived sought to prepare a carefully planned uprising in the future, but the Supremacists preferred immediate raids and guerilla operations to foster disorder and a precipitate interventions. On the other hand, a smaller group of conservatives in Salonica organized a Bulgarian Secret Revolutionary Brotherhood (Balgarsko Tayno Revolyutsionno Bratstvo). The latter was incorporated in IMARO by 1902 but its members as Ivan Garvanov, were to exert a significant influence on the organization. They were to push for the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising and later became the core of IMRO right-wing faction. One of the founding leaders of IMARO, Gotse Delchev, was a strong advocate for proceeding slowly, but the Supremacists pressed for a major uprising to take place in the summer of 1903. Delchev himself was killed by the Turks in May 1903.

Meanwhile, in late April 1903, a group of young anarchists from the Gemidzhii Circle - graduates from the then Macedonian High School of Thessaloniki launched a campaign of terror bombing, the so-called Thessaloniki bombings of 1903. Their aim was to attract the attention of the Great Powers to Ottoman oppression in Macedonia and Eastern Thrace. As a response to the attacks, the Turkish Army and bashibozouks (irregulars) massacred many innocent Macedonians in Thessaloniki, and later in Bitola.

By these circumstances the Supremacists' plan went ahead. Under a leadership from Ivan Garvanov IMARO made a decision about military revolt. Garvanov, himself, did not participate in the uprising, because of his arrest and exile in Rhodes. The day chosen for the uprising was August 2 (July 20 in the old Julian calendar), the feast day of St. Elias (Elijah). This holy day was known as Ilinden. On 11 July, a congress at Petrova Niva near Malko Tarnovo set the date of 23 July for the uprising, then deferred it a bit more to 2 August. The Thrace region, around the Adrianople Vilayet was not ready, and negotiated for a later uprising in that region.

The position of the Bulgarian government on the uprising. During the discussions, Racho Petrov's government supported IMARO's position of an entirely internal character of the rebellion because it would have meant Macedonian independency from the Ottoman Empire and a easier annexation of Macedonia by Bulgaria. Apart from Racho Petrov's personal warning to Gotse Delchev in January 1903 about delaying or even canceling the rebellion, the government sent out a circular note to its diplomatic representations in Thessaloniki, Bitola and Edirne, advising the population not to succumb to a pro-rebellion propaganda, as Bulgaria was not ready to support it.

Old Russian Berdan and Krnka rifles as well as Mannlichers were supplied from Bulgaria to Skopje following the insistence for faster rapid fire by Bulgarian army officer Boris Sarafov. In his memoir, Sarafov states that the main source of funds for the purchase of the weapons from the Bulgarian army came from the kidnapping of Miss Stone as well as from contacts in Europe.

Ilinden Uprising

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An account of the dates and details of the uprising were recorded by the anarchist author Georgi Khadziev which was translated by Will Firth. On 28 July, the message was sent out to the revolutionary movements, though the secret was kept until the last moment. The uprising began on the night of August 2, and involved large regions in and around Bitola, around the south-west of what is now North Macedonia and some of the north of Greece. That night and early the next morning, the town of Kruševo was attacked and captured by 800 rebels. Concurrently, after three days of fighting followed by a siege starting on August 5, the town of Smilevo was captured by the rebels. The town of Kleisoura, near Kastoria, was taken by insurgents about August 5. On August 14, under the leadership of Nikola Pushkarov, some bands near Skopje attacked and derailed a military train. In Razlog the population joined in the uprising. This was further east, in Pirin Macedonia in present-day Bulgaria.

On August 4, under leadership of Nikola Karev, a local administration called Kruševo republic had been set up. That same day and the next, Turkish troops made unsuccessful attempts to retake Kruševo. On August 12, following the Battle of Sliva, a force of 3,500 Ottoman soldiers recaptured and burned Kruševo. It had been held by the insurgents for just ten days. Kleisoura was finally recaptured by the Ottomans on August 27.

Other regions involved included Ohrid, Florina, and Kičevo. In the Thessaloniki region, operations were much more limited and without much local involvement, due in part to disagreements between the factions of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO). There was also no uprising in the Prilep area, immediately to the east of Bitola.

The reason why the uprising was strategically chosen in the Bitola vilayet, and the broader southwestern region of Macedonia, was due to the fact that it was located the farthest from Bulgaria, attempting to showcase to the Great Powers that the uprising was purely of a Macedonian character and phenomenon. Per one of the founders of IMARO — Petar Poparsov the idea to keep distance from Bulgaria, was because any suspicion of its interference could harm both sides: Bulgaria and the organisation. In fact the uprising soon spread to the adjacent vilayets of Kosovo, Thessaloniki and Adrianople (in Thrace).

Krastovden Uprising

• Militias active in the region of Serres, led by Yane Sandanski and an insurgent detachment of the Supreme Committee, held down a large Turkish force. These actions began on the day of the Feast of the Cross (Krastovden in Bulgarian, September 27) and did not involve the local population as much as in other regions, and were well to the east of Monastir and to the west of Thrace.

In areas encompassing the uprising of 1903, Albanian villagers were in a situation of being either under threat from IMRO četas or recruited by Ottoman authorities to end the uprising.

Preobrazhenie Uprising

According to Khadziev, the main goal of the uprising in Thrace was to give support to the uprisings further west, by engaging Turkish troops and preventing them from moving into Macedonia. Many of the operations were diversionary, though several villages were taken, and a region in Strandzha was held for around twenty days. This is sometimes called the Strandzha republic or Strandzha commune, but according to Khadziev there was never a question of state power in the Thrace region.

• On the morning of August 19, attacks were made on villages throughout the region, including Vasiliko (now Tsarevo), Stoilovo (near Malko Tarnovo), and villages near Edirne.
• On August 21, the harbor lighthouse at Igneada was blown up.
• Around September 3 a strong Ottoman force began reasserting their control.
• By September 8 the Turks had restored control and were mopping up.

Rhodope Mountains Uprising

In the Rhodope Mountains, Western Thrace, the uprising expressed only in some cheta's diversions in the regions of Smolyan and Dedeagach.

Aftermath

The reaction of the Ottoman Turks to the uprisings was one of overwhelming force. The only hope for the insurgents was outside intervention, and that was never politically feasible. Indeed, although Bulgarian interests were favoured by the actions, the Bulgarian government itself had been required to outlaw the Macedonian rebel groups prior to the uprisings and sought the arrest of its leaders. This was a condition of diplomacy with Russia. The waning Ottoman Empire dealt with the instability by taking vengeance on local populations that had supported the rebels. Casualties during the military campaigns themselves were comparatively small, but afterward, thousands were killed, executed or made homeless. Historian Barbara Jelavich estimates that about nine thousand homes were destroyed, and thousands of refugees were produced. According to Georgi Khadziev, 201 villages and 12,400 houses were burned, 4,694 people killed, with some 30,000 refugees fleeing to Bulgaria.

On September 29, the General staff of the Uprising sent the Letter N 534 to the Bulgarian government, appealing for immediate armed intervention:

"The General staff considers its duty to turn the attention of the respectable Bulgarian government to the disastrous consequences for the Bulgarian nation, if it does not carry out its duty towards its birth brothers here, in an impressive and active manner, as imposed by the power of the circumstances and the danger, which threatens the all-Bulgarian fatherland – through war."

Still, Bulgaria was unable to send troops to the rescue of the rebelling fellow Bulgarians in Macedonia and Adrianople, Thrace. When IMARO representatives met the Bulgarian Prime-Minister Racho Petrov, he showed them the ultimatums by Serbia, Greece and Romania, which he had just received and which informed him of those countries' support for Turkey, in case Bulgaria intervened to support the rebels. At a meeting in early October, the general staff of the rebel forces decided to cease all revolutionary activities, and declared the forces, excepting regular militias, to be disbanded. After the uprising, IMARO became more strongly associated with the Supremacists, and with the goal of hegemony by Bulgaria. The savagery of the insurrections and the reprisals did finally provoke a reaction from the outside world. In October, Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary and Nicholas II of Russia met at Mürzsteg and sponsored the Mürzsteg program of reforms, which provided for foreign policing of the Macedonia region, financial compensation for victims, and establishment of ethnic boundaries in the region. The reforms achieved little practical result apart from giving more visibility to the crisis. The question of competing aspirations of Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, and local advocates for political autonomy were not addressed, and the notion of ethnic boundaries was impossible to implement effectively. In any case, these concerns were soon overshadowed by the Young Turk revolution of 1908 and the subsequent dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

Subsequent history

The Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 subsequently split up Macedonia and Thrace. Serbia took a portion of Macedonia in the north, which roughly corresponds to North Macedonia. Greece took Aegean Macedonia in the south, and Bulgaria was only able to obtain a small region in the northeast: Pirin Macedonia. The Ottomans managed to keep the Edirne region, where the whole Thracian Bulgarian population was put to total ethnic cleansing by the Ottoman Empire. The rest of Thrace was divided between Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey following World War I and the Greco-Turkish War. Most of the local Bulgarian political and cultural figures were persecuted or expelled from Serbian and Greek parts of Macedonia and Thrace, where all structures of the Bulgarian Exarchate were abolished. Thousands of Macedonian Slavs left for Bulgaria, joining a still larger stream from devastated Aegean Macedonia, where the Greeks burned Kilkis, the center of Bulgarian politics and culture, as well as much of Serres and Drama, Greece. Bulgarian (including the Macedonian Slavic dialects) was prohibited, and its surreptitious use, whenever detected, was ridiculed or punished. Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization supported the Bulgarian army during the Balkan Wars and World War I. After the post-World War I Treaty of Neuilly, the combined Macedonian-Adrianopolitan revolutionary movement separated into two detached organizations: Internal Thracian Revolutionary Organisation and Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation and continued its struggle against Serbian and Greek regimes in the following period to 1934.

IMRO had de facto full control of Bulgarian Pirin Macedonia (the Petrich District of the time) and acted as a "state within a state", which it used as a base for hit and run attacks against Yugoslavia and Greece. IMRO began sending armed bands called cheti into Greek and Yugoslav Macedonia to assassinate officials and stir up the spirit of the oppressed population.

At the end of 1922, the Greek government started to expel large numbers of Bulgarians from Western Thrace into Bulgaria and the activity of the Internal Thracian Revolutionary Organization (ITRO) grew into an open rebellion. The organisation eventually gained full control of some districts along the Bulgarian border. In the summer of 1923, the majority of the Bulgarians had already been resettled to Bulgaria. Although detachments of the ITRO continued to infiltrate Western Thrace sporadically, the main focus of the activity of the organisation now shifted to the protection of the refugees into Bulgaria. IMRO's and ITRO's constant killings and assassinations abroad provoked some within Bulgarian military after the coup of 19 May 1934 to take control and break the power of the organizations.

Legacy

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Portrayals of the insurrections by later historians often reflect ongoing national aspirations. Historians from North Macedonia see them as a part of the move for an independent state as finally achieved by their own new nation. There is, in fact, very little historical continuity from the insurrections to the modern state, but Macedonian sources tend to emphasize the early goals of political autonomy when IMARO was established. The Supremacist faction pushed for the insurrections to take place in the summer of 1903, while the left wing argued for more time and more planning. Historians from Bulgaria emphasize the undoubted Bulgarian character of the rebels, but tends to downplay the moves for political autonomy that were a part of the IMARO organization prior to the insurrections. Western historians generally refer simply to the Ilinden uprising, which marks the date on which uprising began. In Bulgaria it is more common to refer to the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie uprising, giving equal status to the activities commenced at Preobrazhenie near to the Bulgarian coast of the Black Sea and limiting an undue focus on the Macedonian region. Some sources recognize these as two related but distinct insurrections, and name them the Ilinden uprising and the Preobrazhenie uprising. Bulgarian sources tend to emphasize the moves within IMARO for hegemony with Bulgaria, as advocated by the Supremacist and the right wing factions.

The Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising was celebrated by the Macedonian and Thracian diaspora in Bulgaria and by all factions within the IMARO. It was commemorated officially in Macedonia under Bulgarian rule when it occupied then South Serbia during World War I and World War II. Celebrations occurred also in 1939 and 1940 in defiance of the ban by Serb authorities. The leaders of the Ilinden uprising are today celebrated as heroes in modern-day North Macedonia. They are regarded as Macedonian patriots and as founders of the drive for Macedonian independence. The names of the IMARO revolutionaries like Gotse Delchev, Pitu Guli, Dame Gruev and Yane Sandanski were included into the lyrics of the anthem of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia Denes nad Makedonija ("Today over Macedonia"). There are towns named after the leaders in both Bulgaria and North Macedonia. Today, 2 August is the national holiday in North Macedonia, known as Day of the Republic, which considers it the date of its first statehood in modern times. It is also the date on which, in 1944, a People's Republic of Macedonia was proclaimed at ASNOM as a constituent republic of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The ASNOM event is now referred as the 'Second Ilinden' in North Macedonia, though there is no direct link to the events of 1903. In Bulgaria Ilinden and Preobrazhenie days as anniversaries of the uprising are publicly celebrated on a local level, primarily in the Pirin Macedonia and Northern Thrace regions.

Controversy

There have been long-going disputes between parties in Bulgaria and North Macedonia about the ethnic affiliation of the insurgents. The opinion of most Macedonian historians and politicians is that Preobrazhenie uprising was a Bulgarian uprising, not related with the Ilinden one, which was organized by Macedonians. Nevertheless, some of the Macedonian historical scholarship and political élite have reluctantly acknowledged the Bulgarian ethnic character of the insurgents. Krste Misirkov, regarded nowadays in North Macedonia as one of the most prominent proponents of Macedonian nationalism of the early 20th century, states in his brochure On the Macedonian Matters (1903) that the uprising was supported and carried out primarily by that part of Macedonia's Slavic population which had Bulgarian national identity.

The dominant view in Bulgaria is that at that time the Macedonian and Thracian Bulgarians predominated in all regions of the uprisings and that Macedonian ethnicity did still not exist. More, the first name of the IMRO was "Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees". Initially its membership was restricted only for Bulgarians. It was active not only in Macedonia but also in Thrace. Since its early name emphasized the Bulgarian nature of the organization by linking the inhabitants of Thrace and Macedonia to Bulgaria, these facts are still difficult to be explained from the Macedonian historiography. They suggest that IMRO revolutionaries in the Ottoman period did not differentiate between 'Macedonians' and 'Bulgarians'. Moreover, as their own writings attest, they often saw themselves and their compatriots as 'Bulgarians' and wrote in Bulgarian standard language. It has also to be noted that some attempts from Bulgarian officials for joint actions and celebration of the Ilinden uprising were rejected from Macedonian side as unacceptable.

Nevertheless, on August 2, 2017, the Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and his Macedonian colleague Zoran Zaev placed wreaths at the grave of Gotse Delchev on the occasion of the 114th anniversary of the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising, after the previous day, both have signed a treaty for friendship and cooperation between the neighboring states. The treaty also calls for a committee to "objectively re-examine the common history" of Bulgaria and Macedonia and envisages both countries will celebrate together events from their shared history.

Honour

In Bulgaria

• Ilindentsi village in Strumyani Municipality, in Blagoevgrad Province is named after the uprising
• Preobrazhentsi village in Ruen Municipality, in Burgas Province is named after the uprising
• Ilinden village in Hadzhidimovo Municipality, in Blagoevgrad Province is named after the uprising
• Ilinden, Sofia is a district of Sofia, located in the western parts of the city, named after the uprising
• OMO Ilinden-Pirin, ethnic Macedonian organization in Bulgaria
• Ilinden (organization) was a veteran nonpolitical organization set up by Bulgarian refugees from Macedonia.

In North Macedonia

• Ilinden Municipality, in the Skopje region
• Ilinden, the seat of Ilinden Municipality
• Ilinden is a peak on Baba Mountain in Pelister National Park
• FK Ilinden 1955 Bašino, football club near Veles
• FK Ilinden Skopje, football club in the village of Ilinden

Elsewhere

• Ilinden Peak on Greenwich Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica is named after the uprising

See also

• Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization
• Ohrid-Debar Uprising
• Tikvesh Uprising
• Kresna-Razlog Uprising

Footnotes

1. ^ Македония и Одринско 1893–1903. Мемоар на Вътрешната организация. [Macedonia and Adrianople Region 1893–1903. A Memoir of the Internal Organization.] (in Bulgarian). Sofia: Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization. 1904.
2. ^ Perry, Duncan (1988). The Politics of Terror. The Macedonian Revolutionary Movements, 1893–1903. Durham and London: Duke University Press. p. 136. ISBN 0-8223-0813-4.
3. ^ Adanir, Fikret (1979). Die Makedonische Frage. Ihre Entstehung und Entwicklung bis 1908 [The Macedonian Question. Its Genesis and Development Until 1908]. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag. ISBN 3-515-02914-1.
4. J. D. B. (1911). "Macedonia (Bulgarian Insurrection of 1903)". The Encyclopaedia Britannica; A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information. Vol. XVII (LORD CHAMBERLAIN to MECKLENBURG) (11th ed.). Cambridge, England: At the University Press. p. 221. Retrieved 18 July 2018 – via Internet Archive.
5. The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804–1920, C. & B. Jelavich, 1977, pp 211–212
6. Victor. Roudometof, The Macedonian Question From Conflict to Cooperation? in Constantine Panos Danopoulos, Dhirendra K. Vajpeyi, Amir Bar-Or as ed., Civil-military Relations, Nation Building, and National Identity: Comparative Perspectives, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, ISBN 0275979237, p. 216.
7. "However, contrary to the impression of researchers who believe that the Internal organization espoused a "Macedonian national consciousness," the local revolutionaries declared their conviction that the "majority" of the Christian population of Macedonia is "Bulgarian." They clearly rejected possible allegations of what they call "national separatism" vis-a-vis the Bulgarians, and even consider it "immoral." Though they declared an equal attitude towards all the "Macedonian populations." Tschavdar Marinov, We the Macedonians, The Paths of Macedonian Supra-Nationalism (1878–1912), in "We, the People: Politics of National Peculiarity in Southeastern Europe" with Mishkova Diana as ed., Central European University Press, 2009, ISBN 9639776289, pp. 107-137.
8. The political and military leaders of the Slavs of Macedonia at the turn of the century seem not to have heard the call for a separate Macedonian national identity; they continued to identify themselves in a national sense as Bulgarians rather than Macedonians. (They) never seem to have doubted "the predominantly Bulgarian character of the population of Macedonia". "The Macedonian conflict: ethnic nationalism in a transnational world", Princeton University Press, Danforth, Loring M. 1997, ISBN 0691043566, p. 64.
9. "The last of the significant leaders of the Uprising - Dame Gruev, died one 23 December 1906 in a fight with Turkish soldiers. The Turkish Press described him as the biggest leader of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Committee. French, Austrian, Russian, American and British consuls and ambassadors reported to their governments the preparation and the crushing of the Ilinden Uprising and described it as a Bulgarian event. The Turks themselves described the uprising as a Bulgarian conspiracy." Chris Kostov, Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900-1996, Volume 7 of Nationalisms across the globe, Peter Lang, 2010, ISBN 3034301960, pp. 87-88.
10. The modern Macedonian historiographic equation of IMRO demands for autonomy with a separate and distinct national identity does not necessarily jibe with the historical record. A rather obvious problem is the very title of the organization, which included Thrace in addition to Macedonia. Thrace whose population was never claimed by modern Macedonian nationalism...There is, moreover, the not less complicated issue of what autonomy meant to the people who espoused it in their writings. According to Hristo Tatarchev, their demand for autonomy was motivated not by an attachment to Macedonian national identity but out of concern that an explicit agenda of unification with Bulgaria would provoke other small Balkan nations and the Great Powers to action. Macedonian autonomy, in other words, can be seen as a tactical diversion, or as "Plan B" of Bulgarian unification. İpek Yosmaoğlu, Blood Ties: Religion, Violence and the Politics of Nationhood in Ottoman Macedonia, 1878–1908, Cornell University Press, 2013, ISBN 0801469791, pp. 15-16.
11. The "Adrianopolitan" part of the organization's name indicates that its agenda concerned not only Macedonia but also Thrace — a region whose Bulgarian population is by no means claimed by Macedonian nationalists today. In fact, as the organization's initial name ("Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees") shows, it had a Bulgarian national character: the revolutionary leaders were quite often teachers from the Bulgarian schools in Macedonia. This was the case of founders of the organization... Their organization was popularly seen in the local context as "the Bulgarian committee(s). Tchavdar Marinov, Famous Macedonia, the Land of Alexander: Macedonian identity at the crossroads of Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian nationalism in Entangled Histories of the Balkans - Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies with Roumen Daskalov and Tchavdar Marinov as ed., BRILL, 2013, ISBN 900425076X, pp. 273-330.
12. Autonomy for Macedonia and the vilayet of Adrianople (southern Thrace) became the key demand for a generation of Slavic activists. In October 1893, a group of them founded the Bulgarian Macedono-Adrianopolitan Revolutionary Committee in Salonica...It engaged in creating a network of secretive committees and armed guerrillas in the two regions as well as in Bulgaria, where an ever-growing and politically influential Macedonian and Thracian diaspora resided. Heavily influenced by the ideas of early socialism and anarchism, the IMARO activists saw the future autonomous Macedonia as a multinational polity, and did not pursue the self-determination of Macedonian Slavs as a separate ethnicity. Therefore, Macedonian (and also Adrianopolitan) was an umbrella term covering Bulgarians, Turks, Greeks, Vlachs (Aromanians), Albanians, Serbs, Jews, and so on. While this message was taken aboard by many Vlachs as well as some Patriarchist Slavs, it failed to impress other groups for whom the IMARO remained the Bulgarian Committee.' Historical Dictionary of Republic of Macedonia, Historical Dictionaries of Europe, Dimitar Bechev, Scarecrow Press, 2009, ISBN 0810862956, Introduction.
13. ^ Khadziev, Georgi (1992), Down with the Sultan, Long live the Balkan Federation!, retrieved 3 September 2007 An excerpt from the book "National Liberation and Libertarian Federalism" (Natsionalnoto osvobozhdeniye i bezvlastniyat federalizum), translated by Will Firth.
14. The Adrianople region became one of the Bulgarians' most coveted irredentas, second only to Macedonia. By the end of the 19th century, the total population in the Adrianople region amounted to almost one million people, nearly one-third of whom were Bulgarians...A Bulgarian national liberation movement began to develop immediately after 1878, in close cooperation with the national liberation movement in Macedonia, and acquired an organized character after the creation of the Internal Macedonian-Adrianopolitan Revolutionary Organization (IMARO) in 1893. It relied mainly on the refugees from the Adrianople region who were living in Bulgaria, but there was also an "internal" organization. Its actions culminated in the Preobrazhenie (Transfiguration) Uprising, which broke out two weeks after the Ilinden Uprising, on 6/19 August 1903. Raymond Detrez, Historical Dictionary of Bulgaria, Historical Dictionaries of Europe, No. 46, Scarecrow Press, 2006, ISBN 0810849011, p. 3.
15. Nadine Lange-Akhund, The Macedonian Question, 1893-1908, from Western Sources, East European Monographs, 1998; ISBN 0880333839, p. 125.
16. ^ Gewehr, W.M. (1967), The Rise of Nationalism in the Balkans, 1800–1930, Archon books, ISBN 0-208-00507-2, first published in 1931, by H. Holt & Co.
17. ^ Jelavich, B. (1983), History of the Balkans, vol. 2, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-25448-5
18. ^ Jelavich, C.; Jelavich, B. (1977), The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804–1920, University of Washington Press, ISBN 0-295-95444-2 Volume 8 of the 11 volume series A History of East Central Europe.
19. The Macedoine: The National Question in Yugoslavia. Origins, History, Politics, by Ivo Banac, Cornell University Press, 1984, p. 314.
20. Schevill, F. (1971), The History of the Balkan Peninsula, Harcourt, Brace & Co, ISBN 0-405-02774-5, first printed in 1922.
21. ^ Crampton, R.J. (1997), A concise history of Bulgaria (2nd ed.), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-61637-9
22. Революционното братство е създадено в противовес на вътрешната организация от еволюционистите. Уставът му носи дата март 1897 г. и е подписан с псевдонимите на 12 членове — основатели. Братството създава свои организации на някои места в Македония и Одринско и влиза в остър конфликт с вътрешната организация, но през 1899–1900 г. се постига помирение и то се присъединява към нея - Христо Караманджуков, "Родопа през Илинденско-Преображенското въстание" (Изд. на Отечествения Фронт, София, 1986).
23. The Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising of 1903, Dedicated to the 105th. anniversary from the events, Professor Dimitar Gotsev - Macedonian Scientific Institute. Archived 2008-10-30 at the Wayback Machine
24. Brown, Keith S. (2013). Loyal Unto Death: Trust and Terror in Revolutionary Macedonia. Indiana University Press. p. 148. ISBN 9780253008350.
25. and Basevski, Nikolov (1927). Spomeni na Dame Gruev, Boris Sarafov and Ivan Garvanov. Sofia: Press P. Glushkoz. pp. 146, pg 153.
26. National military history museum of Bulgaria, fond 260
27. Who are the Macedonians by Hugh Poulton - p. 57. Retrieved 29 November 2014.
28. "MIA". Archived from the original on 2012-04-05. Retrieved 29 November 2014.
29. Perry, Duncan M. (1980). "Death of a Russian Consul: Macedonia 1903". Russian History. 7 (1): 204. doi:10.1163/187633180x00139. ISSN 0094-288X. The long-awaited revolt began at dusk on Sunday, 2 August 1903, Saint Elijah's Day—or Ilinden. The insurrection was confined to Bitola Vilayet because, according to one source, it was farthest from Bulgaria, a factor designed to show the Great Powers that the revolt was purely a Macedonian phenomenon.
30. Тодор Петров, Цочо Билярски, Вътрешната македоно-одринска революционна организация през погледа на нейните основатели; Военно издателство; София, 2002, ISBN 954-509-233-5 стр. 205.
31. Raymond Detrez, The A to Z of Bulgaria; Edition 2, SCARECROW Press, 2010, ISBN 0810872021, p. 217.
32. Brown, Keith (2003). The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation. Princeton University Press. p. 267. ISBN 9780691099958. "The Uprising in 1903 had involved mainly Slav-speaking Christians with the assistance of the Vlah population. Albanian villagers had largely found themselves either under threat from VMRO četas or recruited into the Ottoman effort to crush the Uprising."
33. Петко Т. Карапетков, Славейно. Пловдив, 1948 г., стр 216—219.
34. Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of History, Bulgarian Language Institute, "Macedonia. Documents and materials", Sofia, 1978, part III, No.92.
35. The Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising of 1903, Dedicated to the 105th. anniversary from the events, Professor Dimitar Gotsev — Macedonian Scientific Institute.
36. Letter No. 534 from the General Staff of the Second Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Region to the Bulgarian Government on the position of the insurgent Bulgarian population, requesting military intervention from Bulgaria, September 9th, 1903, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of History, Bulgarian Language Institute, "Macedonia. Documents and materials", Sofia, 1978, part III, No.92: "To the Esteemed Government of the Principality of Bulgaria. In view of the critical and terrible situation of the Bulgarian population of the Monastir Vilayet following the devastations and cruelties perpetrated by the Turkish troops and bashibazouks, in view of the fact that these devastations and cruelties continue systematically, and that one cannot foresee how far they will reach; in view, furthermore, of the fact that here everything Bulgarian is running the risk of perishing and being obliterated without a trace by violence, hunger and by approaching poverty, the General Staff considers it its duty to draw the attention of the Esteemed Bulgarian Government to the fatal consequences for the Bulgarian nation, if it fails to discharge its duty to its own brothers here in an impressive and energetic manner, made imperative by force of circumstances and by the danger threatening the common Bulgarian homeland at the present moment ..."
37. Academician Lyubomir Miletich, "The Destruction of Thracian Bulgarians in 1913", Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, State printing house, 1918. On-line publication of the phototype reprint of the first edition of the book in Bulgarian (in Bulgarian "Разорението на тракийските българи през 1913 година", Българска академия на науките, София, Държавна печатница, 1918 г.; II фототипно издание, Културно-просветен клуб "Тракия" - София, 1989 г., София).
38. "The immediate effect of the partition was the anti-Bulgarian campaign in areas under Serbian and Greek rule. The Serbians expelled Exarchist churchmen and teachers and closed Bulgarian schools and churches (affecting the standing of as many as 641 schools and 761 churches). Thousands of Macedonian Slavs left for Bulgaria, joining a still larger stream from devastated Aegean Macedonia, where the Greeks burned Kukush, the center of Bulgarian politics and culture, as well as much of Serres and Drama. Bulgarian (including the Macedonian Slavic dialects) was prohibited, and its surreptitious use, whenever detected, was ridiculed or punished.", Ivo Banac, in The National Question in Yugoslavia. Origins, History, Politics, pp. 307–328, Cornell University Press, 1984, retrieved on September 6, 2007.
39. Илюстрация Илинден, София, октомври 1927, бр. 5, стр. 7-8. Любомир Милетич, На Илинденско Тържество в Битоля (1916).
40. Colliers Encyclopedia, Macedonia, 1993 edition.
41. Известно е че през 1918 г. в разгара на Първата световна война и в навечерието на контраофанзивата на войските на Антантата на Македонския фронт, страната ни отбелязва 15-годишнината от Илинденско-Преображенското въстание. Но малко известен е фактът, че с тази задача се залавя водачът на ВМОРО Тодор Александров, подпомогнат от ректора на Софийския университет „Св. Климент Охридски“ проф. Георги Шишков и тогавашния кмет на Крушево Наум Томалевски. For more see: Цочо В. Билярски, През 1918 година Тодор Александров организира честването на Илинденското въстание.
42. Ilinden left a durable trace in popular memories. It was commemorated by the diaspora in Bulgaria and all factions within the IMARO. A veteran organization was established in 1921...In the late 1930s, communists in Vardar Macedonia organized commemorations, defying the ban by the Serb authorities. Celebrations were institutionalized following the region’s annexation by Bulgaria in April 1941. For more see: Dimitar Bechev, (2009) Historical dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia, Scarecrow Press, p. 96, ISBN 978-0-8108-5565-6.
43. Appealing to this positive historical inheritance, the Regional Committee of the KPJ in Macedonia organised Ilinden demonstrations in the towns before the war, in 1939 and 1940, as the most effective way of activating nationalism. For more see: Stefano Bianchini and Marco Dogo as ed., The Balkans: National Identities in a Historical Perspective, Longo, 1998, p. 125, ISBN 8880631764.
44. "August 2nd, non-working for Macedonian citizens". macedoniaonline.eu. 2008-07-29. Retrieved 30 July 2008.
45. "Интервју со д-р Васил Јотевски. Тешко е да се полемизира... Бранко Горгевски ("Дневник"), Народна волja број 2050". Retrieved 29 November 2014.
46. "Кој со кого ќе се помирува? Лидерот на ВМРО-ДПМНЕ и Премиер на Република Македонија, Љубчо Георгиевски одговара и полемизира на темата за национално помирување". Archived from the original on 27 October 2009. Retrieved 29 November 2014.
47. Академик Иван Катарџиев, "Верувам во националниот имунитет на македонецот", интервју, "Форум": "ФОРУМ - Дали навистина Делчев се изјаснувал како Бугарин и зошто? КАТАРЏИЕВ - Ваквите прашања стојат. Сите наши луѓе се именувале како "Бугари"..."; also (in Macedonian; in English: "Academician Ivan Katardzhiev. I believe in Macedonian national immunity", interview, "Forum" magazine: "FORUM - Whether Gotse Delchev really defined himself as Bulgarian and why? KATARDZHIEV - Such questions exist. All our people named themselves as "Bulgarians"...")
48. "Уште робуваме на старите поделби", Разговор со д-р Зоран Тодоровски, http://www.tribune.eu.com Archived 2007-10-11 at the Wayback Machine, 27. 06. 2005, also here (in Macedonian; in English: "We are still in servitude to the old divisions", interview with Ph. D. Zoran Todorovski, published on http://www.tribune.eu.com , 27. 06. 2005.
49. Misirkov, Krste (1903). За македонцките работи [On the Macedonian Matters] (PDF) (in Bulgarian and Macedonian). Sofia: Либералний клуб (The Liberal Club). p. 17.
50. "The Ilinden - Preobrazhenie Uprising of 1903". Authors: Hristo Hristov, Dimiter Kossev, Lyubomir Panayotov; Publisher: Sofia Press - 1983; in English language.
51. Brunnbauer, Ulf (2004) Historiography, Myths and the Nation in the Republic of Macedonia. In: Brunnbauer, Ulf, (ed.) (Re)Writing History. Historiography in Southeast Europe after Socialism. Studies on South East Europe, vol. 4. LIT, Münster, pp. 165-200 ISBN 382587365X.
52. "Сите ние сме Бугари". Македонски историци "на бунт" срещу общото честване на празниците ни. в-к "Дума", 07.06.2006.
53. България и светът. 04 Август 2006, По съседски: Събития с балкански адрес. Новина № 2. Archived 2006-10-20 at the Wayback Machine
54. PMs Borisov and Zaev place wreaths at Gotse Delchev’s grave in Skopje, 2 August 2017, FOCUS News Agency.
55. Macedonia, Bulgaria Sign Historic Treaty, Renounce Rivalry, Aug. 1, 2017, The New York Times.
56. Пелистер

Notes

1. The names of the 1903 uprising were given by the historians, not by the rebels. The names "Ilinden" and "Preobrazhenie" uprising gained popularity after the First World War in Bulgaria. Then the combined before the Balkan Wars Macedonian-Thracian liberation movement split in two organizations. As more numerous and active, the Macedonian activists imposed mainly the name "Ilinden" on the Bulgarian public. Since the 1960s, the members of the Bulgarian historical community have been trying to popularize the name "Ilinden-Preobrazhenie" uprising. Their logic is that at the beginning of the 20th century the organization was one: "Macedonian-Adrianopolitan", and its goal was a common uprising. Some Bulgarian historians insist that to the name of the uprising must be added the "Day of the Cross" (Krastovden), because then was the beginning of the rebellion in the Serres Revolutionary District. Before the Second World War the historians in Yugoslavia emphasized the Bulgarian provenance of the rebellion, but after the War they insisted that these were two separate uprisings that were not related, one being Bulgarian and the other Macedonian, as this thesis has been maintained to this day in North Macedonia for political reasons.

Sources

• The English daily newspaper "Times", issues about the Ilinden uprising in August, 1903
• Twenty-four letters from Macedonia - 1903, John MacDonald
• Durham, Edith. (1905). The Burden of the Balkans
• Brailsford, Henry Noel (1906) Macedonia: Its Races and Their Future. London: Methuen & Co (Brailsford's photographs)
• Pozzi, Henry. (1935). Black hand over Europe. F. Mott and Co., London (for online version of relevant pages, click here)
• Jelavich, Charles and Jelavich, Barbara (October 1977), The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804–1920, History of Central Europe, Seattle: University of Washington Press, ISBN 0-295-95444-2{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• MacDermott, Mercia. (1978). Freedom or Death — the life of Gotse Delchev. London: Journeyman Press
• Jelavich, Barbara (1983-07-29), History of the Balkans, Cambridge University Press
• Banac, Ivo (1984), The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, ISBN 978-0-8014-9493-2 (for online version of relevant pages, click here)
• Poulton, Hugh. (1995). Who are the Macedonians? C.Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd., London
• Gilbert, Martin (1997), "1903", A History of the Twentieth Century, Volume One: 1900–1933, New York: HarperCollins, ISBN 0-688-10064-3
• Prof. Dimitar Gotsev: Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising of 1903 - Ideals and Heroism Dedicated to the 105th anniversary from the events

• Conflicts in 1903
• Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization
• Macedonia under the Ottoman Empire
• Rebellions against the Ottoman Empire
• Military history of North Macedonia
• Manastir Vilayet
• Adrianople Vilayet
• Ottoman Kruševo
• Ottoman Thrace
• 20th-century rebellions
• Bulgarian rebellions
• 1903 in the Ottoman Empire
• 1903 in Bulgaria
• Ilinden Municipality
• Mass murder in 1903
• Macedonian Question