The Bulgarian anti-guerrilla detachments, also called counter-chetas were paramilitary units, created with the help of Bulgarian authorities to fight the Macedonian partisans in Vardar Macedonia during the Second World War. [1]
The Bulgarian anti-guerrilla detachments, also called counter-chetas were paramilitary units, created with the help of Bulgarian authorities to fight the Macedonian partisans in Vardar Macedonia during the Second World War. [1]
The units assisted the Bulgarian authorities, police and the army. At that time, the authorities claimed the communist partisans were Serbian chetniks, and on this occasion the counter-squads were mobilized. [2] They were usually led by veterans of the Mihailovist wing of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. [3] Their formation was approved by the Minister of the Interior Petar Gabrovski at the suggestion of the Skopje police chief Stefan Simeonov, who was a former activist of the Internal Dobrujan Revolutionary Organisation. [4] His chief advisor was the local activist Trajko Čundev . The first detachment was created at the end of 1942 in Veles, and was headed by Pano Manev. [5] These units were particularly active in punitive operations directed against Serbian colonists in the region and by their deportation. [6] Counter-chetas were also active in fighting the Serbian Chetnik formations of Kosta Pećanac in the north. [7] The existing partisan detachments were suppressed with the help of the counter-chetniks in early 1943. [8] In the summer of 1944, over 200 counter-chetniks operated on the territory of Vardar Macedonia. [9] After the withdrawal of Bulgarian authorities from the region in September 1944, and Ivan Mihailov's subsequent refusal to form a pro-German puppet state, most of the participants were killed in combat with the Macedonian partisans or were subsequently captured and convicted by the new communist authorities in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. [10]
Krste Petkov Misirkov was a philologist, journalist, historian and ethnographer from the region of Macedonia.
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Lazar Koliševski was a Macedonian Yugoslav communist political leader in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia and briefly in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He was closely allied with Josip Broz Tito.
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Kalochori (Greek: Καλοχώρι, before 1926: Δοβρόλιτσα - Dovrolitsa; Macedonian Slavic: Добролишта, Bulgarian: Добролища, Добролишча in the Kostur dialect, is a small rural village, part of the municipal unit of Kastoria, Kastoria regional unit, Greece. Kalochori is also located 14 kilometers away from the city of Kastoria and 14 kilometers away from the village of Nestorio. It was a part of the former municipal unit of Mesopotamia. The village has an elevation of 721 meters above sea level.
Metodi Tasev Shatorov - Sharlo was a Bulgarian Communist Party activist and also the temporary leader of the Regional Committee of Communists in Macedonia in 1940-1941. Like most left-wing politicians from Macedonia, during the 1930s he adopted the Resolution of the Comintern on the Macedonian question, about the recognition of a distinct Macedonian national identity. However, such Macedonian communist functionaries, originating from the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) and Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (United), maintained pro-Bulgarian sentiments.
Ivan Hadzhinikolov was a Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary, leader of the revolutionary movement in Macedonia and Adrianople vilayet. He was among the founders of the Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees (IMARO) in October 1893. He is considered a Macedonian by the historiography in North Macedonia.
Mihailo Apostolski was a Macedonian general, partisan, military theoretician, politician, academic and historian. He was the commander of the General Staff of the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Macedonia, colonel general of the Yugoslav National Army, and was declared a People's Hero of Yugoslavia.
World War II in Yugoslav Macedonia started with the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941. Under the pressure of the Yugoslav Partisan movement, part of the Macedonian communists began in October 1941 a political and military campaign to resist the occupation of Vardar Macedonia. Officially, the area was called then Vardar Banovina, because the very name Macedonia was prohibited in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It was occupied mostly by Bulgarian, but also by German, Italian, and Albanian forces.
The Brsjak revolt broke out on 14 October 1880 in the Poreče region of the Monastir Vilayet, led by rebels who sought the liberation of Macedonia from the Ottoman Empire. According to Ottoman sources the goal of the revolt was the accession of Macedonia to Bulgaria. The rebels received secret aid from Principality of Serbia, which had earlier been at war with the Ottoman Empire, until Ottoman and Russian diplomatic intervention in 1881. The Ottoman Gendarmerie succeeded in suppressing the rebellion after a year.
The Vullnetari were a volunteer militia of Albanians from Kosovo set up in 1941 by Italian forces after the successful invasion of Yugoslavia. They served as an auxiliary force for civilian control and protection of villages.
National Institution Cultural Center Trajko Prokopiev - Kumanovo abbreviated NICC Trajko Prokopiev is a cultural center in Kumanovo, North Macedonia. It holds the name of the local composer Trajko Prokopiev (1909-1979). Former name was Cultural Home "Josip Broz Tito" (Дом на култура ,,Јосип Броз Тито.
Boško Mitrović, known by the nom de guerreVirjanac (Вирјанац) or Virčanac (Вирчанац), was a Serbian Chetnik commander.
The Stracin–Kumanovo operation was an offensive operation conducted in 1944 by the Bulgarian Army against German forces in occupied Yugoslavia which culminated in the capture of Skopje in 1944. With the Bulgarian declaration of war on Germany on September 8, followed by Bulgarian withdrawal from the area, the German 1st Mountain Division moved north, occupied Skopje, and secured the strategic Belgrade–Nis–Salonika railroad line. On October 14, withdrawing from Greece, Army Group E faced Soviet and Bulgarian divisions advancing in Eastern Serbia and Vardar Macedonia; by November 2, the last German units left Northern Greece.
The Regional Committee of Communists in Macedonia was the provincial communist organization in Vardar Macedonia from 1939 to 1943.
Nevena Georgieva-Dunja was a Macedonian Yugoslav Partisan. She participated in the 1941 Yugoslav communist resistance during World War II. At the age of 16 she was the youngest fighter in the Macedonian partisan units, and she was the first woman to be a Macedonian partisan fighter.
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Milan Trajkov Stoilov was a socialist revolutionary from the region of Macedonia. According to Macedonian historians, he was a Macedonian activist. However according to Bulgarian historians, he is regarded as a Bulgarian revolutionary.
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