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Gotse Delchev

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Letter of Goce Delcev to Nikola Maleshevski, an activist of IMARO


Goce Delčev (Гоце Делчев, also transliterated Gotze Delchev; 1872-1903) was a Bulgarian revolutionary, co-founder and leader of the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organisation (IMARO), the predecessor to the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) (which came to being after WWI).

Born in Kukush (now Kilkis, northern Greece), Delcev collaborated to the foundation of IMARO in Thessaloniki in 1895. Though considering and declaring himself Bulgarian, Delcev was a champion of Macedonian autonomy. He accepted and preached the principle "Macedonia for the Macedonians" opposing the attempts of Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece to annex the region. The goal of IMARO while led by Delcev was to bring freedom to all Macedonians - irrespective whether they were Bulgarian, Greek, Turkish, Vlach, Albanian or Jewish (Ladino) - by means of an internal insurrection.

Delcev died on May 4th 1903 in a skirmish with the Turkish police near the village of Banitza, Serres region while preparing an uprising in Macedonia.

Macedonian historians regard Delcev as a Slav Macedonian revolutionary who fought for the independence of Macedonia. The slogan "Macedonia for the Macedonians" is consequently regarded as a nationalist slogan (i.e. "Macedonia for the Macedonian Slavs.



Text of the letter (2nd, 3rd and 4th sentence):

"Sofia, 01.05.1899, Kolyo, ... May the dissents and cleavages not frighten you. It is really a pity, but what can we possibly do when we ourselves are Bulgarians and all suffer from the same disease! If this disease had not existed in our forefathers who passed it on to us, we wouldn't have fallen under the ugly sceptre of the Turkish sultans..."

Statute of IMRO

Text of the statute:

"...Statute of Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organisation (amended at the general congress in 1906)


Chapter I. - Goal


Art. 1. - The goal of the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization is to unite any and all dissatisfied elements in Macedonia and the Adrianople Vilyaet without regard to their nationality so that political autonomy can be gained for these two regions..."