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Yane Ivanov Sandanski or Jane Ivanov Sandanski (May 18, 1872, Vlahi, Ottoman Empire - April 22, 1915 near Melnik, Bulgaria) was a Bulgarian revolutionary, one of the leaders of the BMRC since 1895 (SMARO from 1902 and IMARO from 1905) in the Serres region and head of the extreme leftist wing of the organization. He is considered an ethnic Macedonian in Republic of Macedonia. Sandanski was born in the village of Vlahi near Kresna (present-day Bulgaria) on May 28, 1872. His father Ivan participated as a flag carrier in the well known Kresna Uprising. After the crush of the uprising, in 1879 his family moved to Dupnitsa, Bulgaria, where Sandanski received his elementary education. Until 1895 Sandanski was a Bulgarian state employee.

Yane Sandanski was a prominent revolutionary, and one of the leaders of the Revolutionary Movement in Macedonia and Thrace. Since the start of his revolutionary activity, he became well known because he protected the villagers from the tyranny of the Ottomans. He organised courts and taught self-defence. Sandanski lived and fought in the Pirin region, and that is why the people gave him the name "Pirin Tsar" (Pirinski Tsar). He was also active in the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising, and in 1908 when he supported the movement of Young Turks. He was one of the leaders of the one of the left political parties in Macedonia in 1909–1910 - People Federative Party (Bulgarian section) which headquarter was in Solun. His dream was creating a Balkan Federative Republic according to the plans of the Balkan Socialist Federation and Macedonia as a part ot that Federation. It was planned the party to comprise a number of ethic sections that would represent distinct nationalities of Macedonia, but the only section that was created was the Bulgarian one, presided by Yane Sandanski himself.

The IMRO was consisted of two major factions. Jane Sandanski and his Seres group (Federalists) are claimed to fight for an independent Macedonia. On the other hand, the bigger fraction (Centralists) is claimed to incorporate Macedonia into Bulgaria. However, Boris Sarafov, one of its leaders, former Bulgarian officer and leader of the annexationist Supreme Macedonian-Adrianopolitan Committee, in an interview with a British Times correspondent in April 12, 1901, said: It is a grievous error to suppose that we seek to acquire Macedonia on behalf of Bulgaria. We Macedonian consider ourselves to be an entirely separate national element, and we are not in the least disposed to allow our country to be seized by Bulgaria, Servia or Greece. We will, in fact, oppose any such incorporation with all our might. Macedonia must belong to the Macedonians. (Source.) On the other hand, in the autumn of 1903 Boris Sarafov in conjunction with Dame Gruev, both members of the general staff of the Bitola revolutionary district during suppression of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie uprising, wrote a letter to the Bulgarian government with demand for direct Bulgarian military intervention, arguing for this with the words "with a view to the critical and fearsome situation, in which the Bulgarian population of Bitola vilaet is at that moment" and "the circumstances and the danger, which threaten Bulgarian fatherland today". (Sources in English here and in Macedonian here.)

With the fall of the Ottoman Empire Macedonia was partitioned between Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece. Sandanski supported the Bulgarian army in the Balkan wars of 1912–1913. Sandanski was killed near the Rozhen Monastery on April 22, 1915, while travelling from Melnik to Nevrokop, by local IMARO band from Nevrokop's region. Yane Sandanski is mentioned in the National Anthem of the Republic of Macedonia as one of the greatest Macedonian heroes whose idea was creating independent Macedonian State. He is paid tribute to every year by the members of UMO Ilinden-Pirin, an ethnic Macedonian political party in Bulgaria, in the Rozhen Monastery.

The town Sveti Vrach in Pirin Macedonia, Bulgaria was renamed to Sandanski in 1949.

Quotes

• "The Macedonian revolutionaries, which after long and cruel fight with the Turkish tyrants lived to see their dream - freedom of their Fatherland, cannot allow her to fall under Serb and Greek rule again: they will not be afraid to resort to even the most fearsome terrorist means to realize their sacred dream - liberated Bulgarian Macedonia!" (interview for Italian newspaper Seculo, given in Tirana, 1913)

• From an interview with the Serbian writer Branislav Nusic:

B.N.: "These events concern the most closely and most directly us as small nations - Serbians, Bulgarians, Greeks. That's why I came here to investigate these events.

Y.S.: "The future life of small nations doesn't have any conditions. - Sandanski answered readily. - Bulgaria and Serbia did wrong because they followed their own interests. Their main goal wasn't freedom for this people here, but their selfish interests, expanding of their states. After these events, they would stay where they are, and we would make fatherland here.

B.N.: "...So, you are not allowed to enter Bulgaria?"

Y.S.: "I dare not go to Bulgaria, but I don't need it. Here is my Bulgaria" (speaking about Macedonia)

Source Политика, 21, VII 1908, Београд.

References

1. The statute was first published in the "Narodna volja" newspaper: "Народна воля" бр. 1, 1909
2. He established a political party, called "People's Federative Party (Bulgarian section)" and noted in its statute (written in literary Bulgarian language) that member of this party could be "every Bulgarian, Ottoman citizen twenty years of age or older" (newspaper "Narodna volya", number 1, January 17th, 1909). He regarded Slav Macedonian population and its language as Bulgarian: in his "Memoirs" Sandanski called his language "Bulgarian" (page 19, see here, retrieved on September 6, 2007), and one village inhabited by Turks and Macedonian Slavs "Turkish-Bulgarian village" (first page, see here, retrieved on September 6, 2007). The Bulgariannes of Sandanski is recognized by several Macedonian historians like academician Ivan Katardzhiev, director of the Historical Sciences section in the Department of Social Sciences in the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts and the director of the Macedonian State archive Ph. D. Zoran Todorovski. Katardzhiev defines all Macedonian revolutionaries from the period before 1930-ies as "Bulgarians" and asserts that separatism of some Macedonian revolutionaties toward official Bulgarian policy was only political phenomenon without ethnic character (an interview for "Forum" magazine, in Macedonian, retrieved on September 6, 2007). Todorovski asserts that "All of them declared themselves as Bulgarians..." and "he considered himself as Bulgarian too" about Sandanski (an interview for www.tribune.eu.com, June 27, 2005, in Macedonian, retrieved on June 26, 2007). Among non-Bulgarian records about the Bulgariannes of Sandanski is an article in Serbian newspaper "Politika", July 1908, number 1619, written by famous writer Branislav Nusic, in which Sandanski is interviewed and listed among Bulgarian rebels (see here, fifth column to the right).

External links

• Mercia MacDermott. For Freedom and Perfection. The Life of Yane Sandansky
• Memoirs of Yane Sandanski (original edition in Bulgarian in the form of text)
• Memoirs of Yane Sandanski (original edition in Bulgarian in the form of .jpg photocopies)
• Memoirs of Yane Sandanski (translated into contemporary Macedonian)

• Bulgarian revolutionaries