The Day of the Macedonian Revolutionary Struggle is a national holiday which is celebrated on October 23rd in North Macedonia. In 2007 the holiday was voted into law as a new national holiday. It is a non-working day.
The holiday is celebrated on the occasion of the formation of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization in Thessaloniki. On October 23, 1893 six young men gathered at the home of the bookstore owner Ivan Hadži Nikolov in Thessaloniki in order to form the basis which would later become the symbol and flag for the struggle for Macedonian freedom. The founders were: Hristo Tatarčev, Dame Gruev, Petar Poparsov, Ivan Hadzhinikolov, Andon Dimitrov and Hristo Batandžiev. They formed a covert group, calling it the Macedonian Revolotionary Organization. The organization fought for the freedom of Macedonia without foreign help. The formation of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization was the beginning of an organized Macedonian revolutionary movement which, via the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising the Kruševo Republic and, later, World War II in Yugoslav Macedonia, resulted in the creation of the modern independent Macedonian state. This date, October 23, is connected with the organized struggle of the peoples living in Macedonia to create an independent state.
Because this day is considered the beginning of IMRO, the Macedonian public was somewhat reserved in declaring this day a national holiday. The Macedonian opposition at the time, led by Social Democratic Union of Macedonia, were wholly against the declaration because the opposition considered it the birthday of the right-wing party VMRO-DPMNE. As such, it was considered inappropriate to celebrate it as a national holiday. Some Macedonian public figures espoused the view, this celebration is related to the ideas of the Bulgarian nationalism. [1] In Bulgaria are also some objections against this way of celebration. It appears that IMRO have originally been called "Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees". [2] IMRO was active not only in Macedonia but also in Thrace and initially the membership in the organization was allowed only for Bulgarians. [3] Contrary to the impression of Macedonian researchers who believe that the Internal organization espoused "Macedonian national consciousness," the local revolutionaries during Ottoman times declared their belief, that the majority of the Slavic Christian population of Macedonia was "Bulgarian." [4] The modern Macedonian historiographic claim of close relationship between the IMRO demands for autonomy with the creation of a separate ethnic Macedonian state, does not correspond with historical records. [5] [6] In this relation, the Bulgarian side has made several proposals that some shared historical events (e.g. the foundation of IMRO) could be celebrated jointly, but this idea was rejected as unacceptable.
In many different parts of North Macedonia the holiday is celebrated with various festivities, concerts, and sports competitions. The official festival is held in the Macedonian Opera and Ballet, where major national figures and historians from the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts give speeches.
The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization – Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity is a political party in North Macedonia and one of the two major parties in the country, the other being the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia.
The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, was a secret revolutionary society founded in the Ottoman territories in Europe, that operated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising, or simply the Ilinden Uprising of August–October 1903, was 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, which included mostly Bulgarian military personnel. The name of the uprising refers to Ilinden, a name for Elijah's day, and to Preobrazhenie which means Transfiguration. Some historians describe the rebellion in the Serres revolutionary district as a separate uprising, calling it the Krastovden Uprising, because on September 14 the revolutionaries there also rebelled. The revolt lasted from the beginning of August to the end of October and covered a vast territory from the western Black Sea coast in the east to the shores of Lake Ohrid in the west.
Georgi Nikolov Delchev, known as Gotse Delchev or Goce Delčev, was an important Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary (komitadji), active in the Ottoman-ruled Macedonia and Adrianople regions at the turn of the 20th century. He was the most prominent leader of what is known today as the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), a secret revolutionary society that was active in Ottoman territories in the Balkans at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Delchev was its representative in Sofia, the capital of the Principality of Bulgaria. As such, he was also a member of the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee (SMAC), participating in the work of its governing body. He was killed in a skirmish with an Ottoman unit on the eve of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie uprising.
The Macedonian Struggle was a series of social, political, cultural and military conflicts that were mainly fought between Greek and Bulgarian subjects who lived in Ottoman Macedonia between 1893 and 1912. The conflict was part of a wider guerilla war in which revolutionary organizations of Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbs all fought over Macedonia. Gradually the Greek and Bulgarian bands gained the upper hand. Though the conflict largely ceased by the Young Turk Revolution, it continued as a low intensity insurgency until the Balkan Wars.
Damyan Yovanov Gruev was а Bulgarian teacher, revolutionary and insurgent leader in the Ottoman regions of Macedonia and Thrace. He was one of the six founders of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. Per Macedonian historiography, he was an ethnic Macedonian. He is considered a national hero in Bulgaria and North Macedonia.
Gyorche Petrov Nikolov born Georgi Petrov Nikolov, was a Bulgarian teacher and revolutionary, one of the leaders of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO). He was their representative in Sofia, the capital of Principality of Bulgaria. As such he was also a member of the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee (SMAC), participating in the work of its governing body. During the Balkan Wars, Petrov was a Bulgarian army volunteer, and during the First World War, he was involved in the activity of the Bulgarian occupation authorities in Serbia and Greece. Subsequently, he participated in Bulgarian politics, but was eventually killed by the rivaling IMARO right-wing faction. According to the Macedonian historiography, he was an ethnic Macedonian.
Yane Sandanski was a Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary. He is recognized as a national hero in both Bulgaria and North Macedonia.
The Miss Stone Affair was the kidnapping of American Protestant missionary Ellen Maria Stone and her pregnant Bulgarian fellow missionary and friend Katerina Cilka by the pro-Bulgarian Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization.
Hristo Apostolov Matov was a prominent Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary, philologist, folklorist and publicist and one of the leaders of the Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees,.
Lazar Poptraykov was a Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary (komitadji). He was also a Bulgarian Exarchate teacher and poet from Ottoman Macedonia. He was one of the leaders of the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (IMARO) in the region of Kastoria (Kostur) during the Ilinden Uprising. Despite his Bulgarian identification, per the post-WWII Macedonian historiography he was as an ethnic Macedonian.
Metody Patchev was a Bulgarian teacher and revolutionary, voivode of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. According to the post-WWII Macedonian historiography, he was an ethnic Macedonian.
Independent Macedonia was a conceptual project of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) to create an independent Macedonia, during the interwar period.
Bulgarian Millet was an ethno-religious and linguistic community within the Ottoman Empire from the mid-19th to early 20th century. The semi-official term Bulgarian millet, was used by the Sultan for the first time in 1847, and was his tacit consent to a more ethno-linguistic definition of the Bulgarians as a nation. Officially as a separate Millet in 1860 were recognized the Bulgarian Uniates, and then in 1870 the Bulgarian Orthodox Christians. At that time the classical Ottoman Millet-system began to degrade with the continuous identification of the religious creed with ethnic identity and the term millet was used as a synonym of nation. In this way, in the struggle for recognition of a separate Church, the modern Bulgarian nation was created. The establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate in 1870, meant in practice official recognition of a separate Bulgarian nationality, and in this case the religious affiliation became a consequence of national allegiance. The founding of an independent church, along with the revival of Bulgarian language and education, were the crucial factors that strengthened the national consciousness and revolutionary struggle, that led to the creation of an independent nation-state in 1878.
Macedonia for the Macedonians is a slogan and political concept used during the first half of the 20th century in the region of Macedonia. It aimed to encompass all the nationalities in the area, into a separate supranational entity.
Autonomy for the region of Macedonia and Adrianople Thrace within the Ottoman Empire was a concept that arose in the late 19th century and was popular until ca. 1920. The plan was developed among Macedonian and Thracian Bulgarian emigres in Sofia and covered several meanings. Serbia and Greece were totally opposed to that set of ideas while Bulgaria was ambivalent to them. In fact Sofia advocated granting such autonomy as a prelude to the annexation of both areas, as for many Bulgarian emigres it was seen in the same way.
Katerina Cilka was a Bulgarian Protestant missionary from Bansko, abducted for ransom by a detachment of the pro-Bulgarian Inner Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) in 1901 and released in 1902.
The Macedonian-Adrianople Social Democratic Group was a regional faction of the Bulgarian Workers' Social Democratic Party in the Ottoman Empire. According to Macedonian historians, most of its activists were ethnic Macedonians.
Due to the lack of original protocol documentation, and the fact its early organic statutes were not dated, the first statute of the clandestine Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) is uncertain and is a subject to dispute among researchers. The dispute also includes its first name and ethnic character, as well as the authenticity, dating, validity, and authorship of its supposed first statute. Certain contradictions and inconsistencies exist in the testimonies of the founding members of the Organization, which further complicates the solution of the problem. It is not yet clear whether the earliest statutory documents of the Organization have been discovered. In general, it was often called "the Bulgarian Committee" on the eve of the 20th century. Its members were designated as Comitadjis, i.e. "committee men". Based on the samples of statutes and regulations of the Organization discovered so far, it appears it was firstly officially called Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianopolitan Revolutionary Committees (BMARC), although this conclusion is still debatable.