Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising or simply the Ilinden Uprising of August 1903 ' onMouseout='HidePop("76874")' href="/topics/Ottoman_Empire">Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

, which was prepared and carried out by the Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization. The British researcher of the Balkans H. N. Brailsford

H. N. Brailsford

Henry Noel Brailsford was the most prolific British left-wing journalist of the first half of the 20th century.The son of a Methodist preacher, he was born in Yorkshire and educated in Scotland, at the High School of Dundee...

wrote in his book Macedonia: Its Races and Their Future: "The moment for which the Bulgarian population had been preparing for ten years arrived on the festival of the Prophet Elijah's day — the evening of Sunday, August the 2nd, 1903." At the same time on the other end of the SMARO's territory, in Eastern Thrace, the leaders of the Adrianople Vilayet comitajis, had unanimously agreed that they were not ready for uprising, but of a feeling of solidarity, had voted for a rising. So in Strandzha

Strandzha

Strandzha is a mountain massif in southeastern Bulgaria and the European part of Turkey, in the southeastern part of the Balkans between the plains of Thrace to the west, the lowlands near Burgas to the north and the Black Sea to the east. Its highest peak is Mahya Dağı in Turkey, while the...

the rising had begun on the Feast of the Transfiguration

Feast of the Transfiguration

The Feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus is celebrated by various Christian denominations. The origins of the feast are less than certain and may have derived from the dedication of three basilicas on Mount Tabor...

, August 19, 1903.

The rebellion in Macedonia

Macedonia (region)

Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...

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

Aromanians

Aromanians are a Latin people native throughout the southern Balkans, especially in northern Greece, Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, and as an emigrant community in Serbia and Romania . An older term is Macedo-Romanians...

population of the region. Provisional government was established in the town of Kruševo

Kruševo

Kruševo also spelled Krushevo, is a town in the Republic of Macedonia. It is the highest town in Macedonia, situated at an altitude of over 4,000 feet above sea level. The town of Kruševo is the seat of Kruševo Municipality.-History:...

(to the west of Prilep

Prilep

Prilep is the fourth largest city in the Republic of Macedonia. It has a population of 66,246 citizens. Prilep is known as "the city under Marko's Towers" because of its proximity to the towers of Prince Marko.-Name:...

), where the insurgents proclaimed the Kruševo Republic
Kruševo Republic
During the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising in 1903 the rebels from the Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization in Kruševo proclaimed a short lived Kruševo Republic....

under the presidency of the school teacher Nikola Karev

Nikola Karev

Nikola Janakiev Karev was a revolutionary in Ottoman-ruled Macedonia. He was born 23 November 1877 in Kruševo and died 27 April 1905 in the village of Rajčani, both today in the Republic of Macedonia. Karev was a local leader of what later became known as the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary...

, which was overrun after just ten days, on August 12. On August 19, a closely related uprising organized by Bulgarian

Bulgarians

The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...

peasants in the Adrianople Vilayet led to the liberation of a large area in the Strandzha Mountains near the Black Sea

Black Sea

The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...

coast, and the creation of a provisional government in Vassiliko

Tsarevo

Tsarevo is a town and seaside resort in southeastern Bulgaria, an administrative centre of the homonymous Municipality of Tsarevo in Burgas Province. It lies on a cove 70 km southeast of Burgas, on the southern Bulgarian Black Sea Coast at the eastern foot of Strandzha mountain...

, the Strandzha Republic. This lasted about twenty days before being put down by the Turks.
By the time the rebellion had started, many of its most promising potential leaders, including Gotse Delchev

Gotse Delchev

Georgi Nikolov Delchev was an important revolutionary figure in Ottoman-ruled Macedonia and Thrace at the turn of the 20th century...

, had already been killed in skirmishes with 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

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

subjects in Europe.

Prelude to the uprising

At the turn of the twentieth century, the Turkish Ottoman empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

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 racial grounds. But the population was highly mixed, 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

Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...

in 1893. The group had a number of name changes prior to and subsequent to the uprising. It was predominantly Bulgarian and supported an idea for autonomous 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

Sofia

Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...

, Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

. This group was called the Supremists, and advocated annexation of the region by Bulgaria.

Since the term autonomy

Autonomy

Autonomy is a concept found in moral, political and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts, it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision...

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

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

nor Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

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 Bulgarian character of Macedonia's Slav Christian

Macedonians (ethnic group)

The Macedonians also referred to as Macedonian Slavs: "... the term Slavomacedonian was introduced and was accepted by the community itself, which at the time had a much more widespread non-Greek Macedonian ethnic consciousness...

population despite the separation from Bulgaria proper. 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

Bulgarian Secret Revolutionary Brotherhood

The Bulgarian Secret Revolutionary Brotherhood was organized from a small group of conservatives, adherents of evolutionary methods of struggle, in Salonica....

(Balgarsko Tayno Revolyutsionno Bratstvo). The latter was incorporated in IMARO by 1902 but its members as Ivan Garvanov

Ivan Garvanov

Ivan Garvanov was a Bulgarian revolutionary and leader of the revolutionary movement in Macedonia and Eastern Thrace. He was among the leaders of the Bulgarian Secret Revolutionary Brotherhood and later of the Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees...

, were to exert a significant influence on the organization. They were to push for the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising

Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising

The Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising or simply the Ilinden Uprising of August 1903 |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...

and later became the core of IMRO right-wing faction. One of the founding leaders of IMARO, Gotse Delchev

Gotse Delchev

Georgi Nikolov Delchev was an important revolutionary figure in Ottoman-ruled Macedonia and Thrace at the turn of the 20th century...

, 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 Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki

Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki

The Sts. Cyril and Methodius Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki was the first Bulgarian high school in Macedonia. One of the most influential Bulgarian educational centres in Macedonia and Southern Thrace, it was founded in autumn 1880 in Ottoman Thessaloniki and existed until...

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 Bulgarians in Thessaloniki, and later in Bitola

Bitola

Bitola is a city in the southwestern part of the Republic of Macedonia. The city is an administrative, cultural, industrial, commercial, and educational centre. It is located in the southern part of the Pelagonia valley, surrounded by the Baba and Nidže mountains, 14 km north of the...

By these circumstances the Supremacists' plan went ahead. Under a leadership from Ivan Garvanov

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

Rhodes

Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...

. The day chosen for upspring 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
Petrova Niva
Petrova Niva is a historic area in the Strandzha mountains of southeastern Bulgaria where, between 11 and 13 July 1903, a group of Bulgarian Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization delegates announced the outbreak of an anti-Ottoman uprising aimed at liberating southern Thrace...

near Malko Tarnovo

Malko Tarnovo

Malko Tarnovo is a town in Burgas Province, Southeastern Bulgaria, located 5 km away from the Turkish border. It is the only town in the interior of the Bulgarian Strandzha Mountains. Malko Tarnovo is the administrative centre of the homonymous Malko Tarnovo Municipality...

set the date of 23 July for the uprising, then deferred it a bit more to 2 August. The Thrace

Thrace

Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...

region, around the Adrianople Vilayet was not ready, and negotiated for a later uprising in that region.

It is interesting to note the position of the Bulgarian government on the issue. Already during the discussions, Racho Petrov

Racho Petrov

Racho Petrov Stoyanov was a leading Bulgarian general and politician.A talented soldier, Petrov was appointed to be Chief of General Staff at the age of 24 and was Minister of Defence at 27....

's government supported IMARO's position of an entirely internal character of the rebellion. 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

Circular note

A circular note is a document request by a bank to itsforeign correspondents to pay a specified sum of money to anamed person. The person in whose favour a circular note isissued is furnished with a letter A circular note is a document request by a bank to itsforeign correspondents to pay a...

to its diplomatic representations in Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki

, Bitola

Bitola

and Edirne

Edirne

Edirne is a city in Eastern Thrace, the northwestern part of Turkey, close to the borders with Greece and Bulgaria. Edirne served as the capital city of the Ottoman Empire from 1365 to 1453, before Constantinople became the empire's new capital. At present, Edirne is the capital of the Edirne...

, advising the population not to succumb to a pro-rebellion propaganda, as Bulgaria was not ready to support it.

The Ilinden uprising in Macedonia

The dates and details here are from an account by the anarchist author Georgi Khadziev, translated by Will Firth.

On 28 July, the message was sent out 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 around Bitola, around the south-west of what is now the Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...

and some of the north of Greece.
On the night of August 2 and early morning of August 3, the town of Kruševo
Kruševo
Kruševo also spelled Krushevo, is a town in the Republic of Macedonia. It is the highest town in Macedonia, situated at an altitude of over 4,000 feet above sea level. The town of Kruševo is the seat of Kruševo Municipality.-History:...

was attacked and captured by 800 rebels.
After three days of fighting and a siege from August 5, the town of Smilevo
Smilevo
Smilevo is a village in the Republic of Macedonia, municipality of Demir Hisar.It is famous for the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie uprising which started in the village in the morning of August 2, 1903...

was captured by the rebels.
The town of Kleisoura, near Kastoria
Kastoria
Kastoria is a city in northern Greece in the periphery of West Macedonia. It is the capital of Kastoria peripheral unit. It is situated on a promontory on the western shore of Lake Orestiada, in a valley surrounded by limestone mountains...

, was taken by insurgents about August 5.
On August 4 and 5, Turkish troops made an unsuccessful attempt to retake Kruševo.
On August 4, under leadership of Nikola Karev
Nikola Karev
Nikola Janakiev Karev was a revolutionary in Ottoman-ruled Macedonia. He was born 23 November 1877 in Kruševo and died 27 April 1905 in the village of Rajčani, both today in the Republic of Macedonia. Karev was a local leader of what later became known as the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary...

, a local administration was set up, now called the Kruševo republic.
On August 12, an 18,000 people strong Ottoman force recaptured and burned Kruševo. It had been held by the insurgents for just ten days.
On August 14, under the leadership of Nikola Pushkarov
Nikola Pushkarov
Nikola Petkov Pushkarov was the first Bulgarian soil researcher and founder of the soil science in Bulgaria. He was also an activist of the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization....

, some bands near Skopje
Skopje
Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...

attacked and derailed a military train.
In Razlog
Razlog
Razlog is a town and ski resort in Razlog Municipality, Blagoevgrad Province in southwestern Bulgaria. It is situated in the Razlog Valley and was first mentioned during the reign of Byzantine emperor Basil II....

the population joined in the uprising. This was further east, in Pirin Macedonia in present-day Bulgaria.
Kleisoura was finally recaptured by the Ottomans on August 27.
Other regions involved included Ohrid
Ohrid
Ohrid is a city on the eastern shore of Lake Ohrid in the Republic of Macedonia. It has about 42,000 inhabitants, making it the seventh largest city in the country. The city is the seat of Ohrid Municipality. Ohrid is notable for having once had 365 churches, one for each day of the year and has...

, Florina
Florina
Florina is a town and municipality in mountainous northwestern Macedonia, Greece. Its motto is, 'Where Greece begins'. It is also the Metropolitan seat for the region. It lies in the central part of Florina peripheral unit, of which it is the capital. Florina belongs to the periphery of West...

, and Kičevo
Kicevo
Kičevo is a city in the western part of the Republic of Macedonia, located in a valley in the south-eastern slopes of Mount Bistra, between the cities of Ohrid and Gostivar. The capital Skopje is 112 km away. The city of Kičevo is the seat of Kičevo Municipality.-Population:The municipality...

. In the Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...

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
Prilep
Prilep is the fourth largest city in the Republic of Macedonia. It has a population of 66,246 citizens. Prilep is known as "the city under Marko's Towers" because of its proximity to the towers of Prince Marko.-Name:...

area, immediately to the east of Bitola.
Militias active in the region of Serres
Serres
Serres is a city in Greece, seat of the Serres prefecture.Serres may also refer to:Places:* Serres, Germany, a part of Wiernsheim in Baden-WürttembergIn France:* Serres, Aude in the Aude département...

, led by Yane Sandanski
Yane Sandanski
Yane Ivanov Sandanski or Jane Ivanov Sandanski, was a revolutionary, one of the leaders of the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization in the Serres region and head of the extreme leftist wing of the organization...

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
Feast of the Cross
In the Christian liturgical calendar, there are several different Feasts of the Cross, all of which commemorate the cross used in the crucifixion of Jesus....

(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.>

The Preobrazhenie uprising in Thrace

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

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. In the Rhodope Mountains

Rhodope Mountains

The Rhodopes are a mountain range in Southeastern Europe, with over 83% of its area in southern Bulgaria and the remainder in Greece. Its highest peak, Golyam Perelik , is the seventh highest Bulgarian mountain...

, Western Thrace

Western Thrace

Western Thrace or simply Thrace is a geographic and historical region of Greece, located between the Nestos and Evros rivers in the northeast of the country. Together with the regions of Macedonia and Epirus, it is often referred to informally as northern Greece...

, the upspring expressed only in some cheta's diversions in the regions of Smolyan

Smolyan

Smolyan is a town and ski resort in the very south of Bulgaria not far from the border with Greece. It is the administrative and industrial centre of the homonymous Smolyan Province...

and Dedeagach

Alexandroupoli

Alexandroupoli , is a city of Greece and the capital of the Evros peripheral unit in Thrace. Named after King Alexander, it is an important port and commercial center of northeastern Greece.-Name:...

On the morning of August 19, attacks were made on villages throughout the region, including Vasiliko (now Tsarevo
Tsarevo
Tsarevo is a town and seaside resort in southeastern Bulgaria, an administrative centre of the homonymous Municipality of Tsarevo in Burgas Province. It lies on a cove 70 km southeast of Burgas, on the southern Bulgarian Black Sea Coast at the eastern foot of Strandzha mountain...

), Stoilovo (near Malko Tarnovo
Malko Tarnovo
Malko Tarnovo is a town in Burgas Province, Southeastern Bulgaria, located 5 km away from the Turkish border. It is the only town in the interior of the Bulgarian Strandzha Mountains. Malko Tarnovo is the administrative centre of the homonymous Malko Tarnovo Municipality...

), and villages near Edirne.
On August 21, the harbor lighthouse at Igneada
Igneada
İğneada is a small town within the district of Demirköy in Turkey's Kırklareli Province. It lies on the Black Sea coast and is approximately south of the Rezovo River which forms the border with Bulgaria. Its population is about 2,100....

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.

Aftermath

The reaction of the Ottoman Turks to the uprisings was savage and involved 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 afterwards 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."

Unfortunately, Bulgaria was unable to send troops to the rescue of the rebelling fellow Bulgarians in Macedonia and Adrianopol Thrace. When IMARO representatives met the Bulgarian Prime-Minister Racho Petrov

Racho Petrov

Racho Petrov Stoyanov was a leading Bulgarian general and politician.A talented soldier, Petrov was appointed to be Chief of General Staff at the age of 24 and was Minister of Defence at 27....

, he showed them the ultimatums by Serbia, Greece and Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

, 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

Franz Joseph I of Austria

Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I was Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, King of Croatia, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Galicia and Lodomeria and Grand Duke of Cracow from 1848 until his death in 1916.In the December of 1848, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria abdicated the throne as part of...

and Nicholas II of Russia

Nicholas II of Russia

Nicholas II was the last Emperor of Russia, Grand Prince of Finland, and titular King of Poland. His official short title was Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias and he is known as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church.Nicholas II ruled from 1894 until...

met at Mürzsteg

Mürzsteg

Mürzsteg is a municipality in the district of Mürzzuschlag in Styria, Austria....

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

Young Turk Revolution

The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 reversed the suspension of the Ottoman parliament by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, marking the onset of the Second Constitutional Era...

of 1908 and the subsequent dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

Subsequent history

The Balkan Wars

Balkan Wars

The Balkan Wars were two conflicts that took place in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe in 1912 and 1913.By the early 20th century, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia, the countries of the Balkan League, had achieved their independence from the Ottoman Empire, but large parts of their ethnic...

of 1912 and 1913 subsequently split up Macedonia and Thrace. Serbia took the major portion of Slavic Macedonia, in the north, which roughly corresponds to the Republic of Macedonia

Republic of Macedonia

Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...

. Greece took Aegean Macedonia

Aegean Macedonia

Aegean Macedonia is a term that refers to the Greek region of Macedonia. It is currently mainly used in the Republic of Macedonia, including in the irredentist context of a United Macedonia. The term is also used in Bulgaria as the more common synonym for Greek Macedonia, without the connotations...

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

The Destruction of Thracian Bulgarians in 1913

"The Destruction of Thracian Bulgarians in 1913" were events described by Bulgarian academician Lyubomir Miletich in 1918, but also mentioned by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace with also a detailed report on the annihilation of Thracian Muslims...

was put to total ethnic cleansing

Ethnic cleansing

Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....

by the Ottoman empire. The rest of Thrace was divided between Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey following World War I and the Greco-Turkish War

Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922)

The Greco–Turkish War of 1919–1922, known as the Western Front of the Turkish War of Independence in Turkey and the Asia Minor Campaign or the Asia Minor Catastrophe in Greece, was a series of military events occurring during the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after World War I between May...

. 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

Bulgarian Exarchate

The Bulgarian Exarchate was the official name of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church before its autocephaly was recognized by the Ecumenical See in 1945 and the Bulgarian Patriarchate was restored in 1953....

were abolished. Thousands of Macedonians left for Bulgaria, joining a still larger stream from devastated Aegean Macedonia

Aegean Macedonia

, where the Greeks burned Kilkis

Kilkis

Kilkis is an industrial city in Central Macedonia, Greece. As of 2001 there were 17,430 people living in the city proper, 24,812 people living in the municipal unit, and 56,336 in the municipality of Kilkis. It is also the capital city of the regional unit of Kilkis.-Name:Kilkis is located in a...

, the center of Bulgarian politics and culture, as well as much of Serres

Serres

Serres is a city in Greece, seat of the Serres prefecture.Serres may also refer to:Places:* Serres, Germany, a part of Wiernsheim in Baden-WürttembergIn France:* Serres, Aude in the Aude département...

and Drama, Greece

Drama, Greece

Drama , the ancient Drabescus , is a town and municipality in northeastern Greece. Drama is the capital of the peripheral unit of Drama which is part of the East Macedonia and Thrace periphery. The town is the economic center of the municipality , which in turn comprises 53.5 percent of the...

. Bulgarian (including the Macedonian 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

Balkan Wars

and World War I. After the post-World War I Treaty of Neuilly

Treaty of Neuilly

The Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine, dealing with Bulgaria for its role as one of the Central Powers in World War I, was signed on 27 November 1919 at Neuilly-sur-Seine, France....

, the combined Macedonian-Adrianopolitan revolutionary movement separated into two detached organizations: Internal Thracian Revolutionary Organisation

Internal Thracian Revolutionary Organisation

The Internal Thracian Revolutionary Organisation , ITRO, was a Bulgarian revolutionary organisation active in Western Thrace and southern Bulgaria between 1920 and 1934.The reason for the establishment of ITRO was the deplorable situation of the Thracian Bulgarians in...

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

Kingdom of Yugoslavia

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...

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

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

Bulgarian coup d'état of 1934

The Bulgarian coup d'état of 1934, also known as the 19 May coup d'état , was a coup d'état in the Kingdom of Bulgaria carried out by the Zveno military organization and the Military Union with the aid of the Bulgarian Army...

to take control and break the power of the organizations.

Legacy

Portrayals of the insurrections by later historians often reflect ongoing national aspirations. Historians from the Republic of Macedonia

Republic of 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 leaders of the Ilinden uprising are celebrated as heroes in the Republic of Macedonia

Republic of Macedonia

. They are regarded as Macedonian patriots and as founders of the drive for Macedonian independence in Macedonia. The names of the IMARO revolutionaries like Pitu Guli

Pitu Guli

Pitu Guli was an Aromanian revolutionary in Ottoman Macedonia, a local leader of what is commonly referred to as the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization ....

, Dame Gruev

Dame Gruev

Damyan Yovanov Gruev or Damjan Jovanov Gruev, often known by his short name Dame Gruev, was an insurgent leader in Ottoman Macedonia and Thrace...

and Yane Sandanski

Yane Sandanski

Yane Ivanov Sandanski or Jane Ivanov Sandanski, was a revolutionary, one of the leaders of the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization in the Serres region and head of the extreme leftist wing of the organization...

were included into the lyrics of the anthem of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia Denes nad Makedonija

Denes nad Makedonija

is the national anthem of the Republic of Macedonia. It was composed by Todor Skalovski and the lyrics were written by Vlado Maleski in 1941. It was used by ASNOM and later performed as a popular song of the Macedonians during the time of Socialist Republic of Macedonia, a part of Yugoslavia...

("Today over Macedonia"). There are towns named after the leaders in both Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia. Today, 2 August is the national holiday

Public holidays in the Republic of Macedonia

Public holidays are observed in the Republic of Macedonia for a number of reasons, including for religious religious and national significance. They are generally accompanied by celebrations....

in Republic of Macedonia

Republic of Macedonia

, known as Day of the Republic

Public holidays in the Republic of Macedonia

Public holidays are observed in the Republic of Macedonia for a number of reasons, including for religious religious and national significance. They are generally accompanied by celebrations....

, 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

Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...

. The ASNOM event is now referred as the 'Second Ilinden' in Republic of 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

Northern Thrace

North Thrace or Northern Thrace constitutes the northern and the largest part of the historical region of Thrace...

regions.

Controversy

There have been long going disputes between parties in Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia about the ethnic affiliation of the insurgents. The opinion of most Macedonian historians and politicians is that Preobrazsenie 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. The Bulgarian view is that at that time the Macedonian and Thracian Bulgarians

Thracian Bulgarians

Thracians or Thracian Bulgarians is a regional, ethnographic group of ethnic Bulgarians, inhabiting or originating from Thrace. Today, the larger part of this population is concentrated in Northern Thrace, but much is spread across the whole of Bulgaria and the diaspora...

predominated in all regions of the uprisings and that Macedonian ethnicity did still not exist. 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.

Honour

Ilinden Peak

Ilinden Peak is an ice-covered peak rising to 620 m in Breznik Heights on Greenwich Island, Antarctica. The peak has precipitous and partly ice-free south slopes, and surmounts Zheravna Glacier to the south, Solis Glacier to the northwest, and Fuerza Aérea Glacier to the north-northeast.The...

on Greenwich Island in the South Shetland Islands

South Shetland Islands

The South Shetland Islands are a group of Antarctic islands, lying about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, with a total area of . By the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, the Islands' sovereignty is neither recognized nor disputed by the signatories and they are free for use by any signatory for...

, Antarctica is named after the uprising.

Prelude to the uprising

The Ilinden uprising in Macedonia

The Preobrazhenie uprising in Thrace

Aftermath

Subsequent history

Legacy

Controversy

Honour

See also