Kruševo Republic

The Kruševo Republic (Bulgarian and Macedonian: Крушевска Република, Kruševska Republika; Aromanian: Republica di Crushuva)^[1] was a short-lived political entity proclaimed in 1903 by rebels from the Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) in Kruševo during the anti-Ottoman Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising.

Kruševo Republic Крушевска Република Republica di Crushuva
1903
Flag
Motto: "Свобода или смърть" (Bulgarian) "Freedom or Death"
Status	Unrecognized rebel state
Capital	Kruševo
Government	Provisional republic
President
• 1903	Nikola Karev
Chairman of the Provisional Government
• 1903	Dinu Vangel [fr; mk; rup]
Historical era	Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising
• Established	3 August 1903
• Disestablished	13 August 1903
Preceded by Succeeded by Ottoman Empire Ottoman Empire
Today part of	North Macedonia

History

Homeless inhabitants of Kruševo in front of the ruins of the town. Regarding the escape of the Bulgarian quarter from destruction, a bribery was suspected,^[2] or eventually the fear of an explosion of the ammunition stored there.^[3]

The events in Kruševo as seen by the American New York Times; 14 August 1903.

In the early 20th century, Kruševo was populated by a Slavic population, Aromanians and Orthodox Albanians with town inhabitants being ethnoreligiously split among various Ottoman millets, with Greek Patriarchists being the largest community, followed by Bulgarian Exarchists and the Ullah millet for the Aromanians.^[4][5] According to the ethnographer Vasil Kanchov's statistics based on linguistic affinity, at that time the town's inhabitants counted: 4,950 Bulgarians, 4,000 Vlachs (Aromanians) and 400 Orthodox Albanians.^[6]

On 3 August 1903, rebels captured the town of Kruševo in the Manastir Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire (present-day North Macedonia) and established a revolutionary government.^[7] The entity existed only for 10 days: from 3 to 13 August, and was headed by Nikola Karev.^[8][9] He was a strong leftist, rejecting the nationalism of the ethnic minorities and favouring alliances with ordinary Muslims against the Sultanate, as well as supporting the idea of a Balkan Federation.^[10]

Amongst the various ethnoreligious groups (millets) in Kruševo, a Republican Council was elected with 60 members – 20 representatives from three groups: Aromanians, Bulgarian Exarchists and Greek Patriarchists.^{[11][12][13][14]} The Council also elected an executive body – the Provisional Government – with six members (2 from each mentioned group),^[15] whose duty was to promote law and order and manage supplies, finances, and medical care. The presumable "Kruševo Manifesto" was published in the first days after the proclamation.^[16][17] Written by Nikola Kirov, it outlined the goals of the uprising, calling upon the Muslim population to join forces with the provisional government in the struggle against Ottoman tyranny, to attain freedom and independence.^[18] Both Nikola Kirov and Nikola Karev were members of the Bulgarian Workers' Social Democratic Party, from where they derived these leftist ideas.^[19]

However, an ethnic identification problem arose.^[20] Karev called all the members of the local Council "brother Bulgarians", while the IMRO insurgents flew Bulgarian flags, killed five Greek Patriarchists, accused of being Ottoman spies, and subsequently assaulted the local Turk and Albanian Muslims.^[21] As long as the town was controlled by the Bulgarian komitadjis, the Patriarchist majority was suspected and terrorized. Except for Exarchist Aromanians,^[22] who were Bulgarophiles,^[23][24] (as Pitu Guli and his family), most members of the other ethnoreligious communities dismissed the IMRO as pro-Bulgarian.^[25][26]

Initially surprised by the uprising, the Ottoman government took extraordinary military measures to suppress it. Pitu Guli's band (cheta) tried to defend the town from Ottoman troops coming from Bitola. The whole band and their leader (voivode) perished. After fierce battles near Mečkin Kamen, the Ottomans managed to destroy the Kruševo Republic, committing atrocities against the rebel forces and the local population.^[27] As a result of the gunnery, the town was set partially ablaze.^[28] After the plundering of the town by the Turkish troops and the Albanian bashi-bazouks, the Ottoman authorities circulated a declaration for the inhabitants of Kruševo to sign, stating that the Bulgarian komitadjis had committed the atrocities and looted the town. A few citizens did sign it under administrative pressure.^[29]

Legacy

A photo of the squad of Pitu Guli near the village of Birino, close to Krusevo, 1903

Tomalevski's family house where the Republic was proclaimed. Today a museum.

The celebration of the events in Kruševo began during the First World War, when the area, then called Southern Serbia, was occupied by Bulgaria. Naum Tomalevski, who was appointed a mayor of Kruševo, organized the nationwide celebration of the 15th anniversary of the Ilinden uprising.^[30] On the place of the Battle of Mečkin Kamen, a monument and a memorial-fountain were built. After the war, they were destroyed by the Serbian authorities, which continued implementing a policy of forcible Serbianization. The tradition of celebrating these events was restored during World War II in the region when it was called Vardar Banovina and was officially annexed by Bulgaria.^[31]

During World War II, the newly organized pro-Yugoslav Macedonian communist partisans developed the idea of some kind of socialist continuity between their struggle and the struggle of the insurgents in Kruševo.^[32] Moreover, they exhorted the population to struggle for "free Macedonia" and against the "fascist Bulgarian occupiers". After the war, the story continued in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, where the Kruševo Republic was included in its historical narrative. The new Communist authorities successfully wiped out the remaining Bulgarophile sentiments.^[33] As part of the efforts to prove the continuity of the new Macedonian nation and the former insurgents, they claimed the IMRO activists had been consciously Macedonian in identity.^[34] The establishment of the short-lived entity is seen today in North Macedonia as a prelude to the independence of the modern Macedonian state.^[35]

Nikola Kirov's writings, which are among the most known primary sources on the rebellion, mention Bulgarians, Vlachs (Aromanians), and Greeks (sic: Grecomans), who participated in the events in Kruševo.^[36] Although post-World War II Yugoslav Communist historians objected to Kirov's classification of Kruševo's Slavic population as Bulgarian, they quickly adopted everything else in his narrative of the events in 1903 as definitive.^[37] During the Informbiro period, the name of insurgents' leader Nikola Karev was scrapped from the Macedonian national anthem,^[38] as he and his brothers were suspected of being Bulgarophiles.^[39]

The "Ilinden Uprising Museum" was founded in 1953 on the 50th anniversary of the Kruševo Republic. It was located in the empty house of the Tomalevski family, where the Republic was proclaimed, though the family had long since emigrated to Bulgaria. In 1974 an enormous monument was built on the hill above Kruševo, which marked the feat of the revolutionaries and the ASNOM. In the area, there is another monument called Mečkin Kamen.^[40]

Some modern Macedonian historians such as Blaže Ristovski have recognized, that the entity, nowadays a symbol of the Macedonian statehood, was composed of people who identified themselves as "Greeks", "Vlachs" (Aromanians), and "Bulgarians".^[41][42] When the anthropologist Keith Brown visited Kruševo on the eve of the 21st century, he discovered that the local Aromanian language still has no way to distinguish "Macedonian" and "Bulgarian", and uses the designation Vrgari, i.e. "Bulgarians", for both ethnic groups.^[36]

Gallery

• 
  Bulgarian postcard representing an insurgent with the flag of Kruševo cheta
• 
  IMRO voivodas from Kruševo in August 1903
• 
  The monument of the Battle of Mečkin Kamen built by the Bulgarian authorities during the First World War.
• 
  Celebration of the 15th anniversary of the events in Krushevo in 1918 during the Bulgarian occupation of then Southern Serbia.
• 
  Old comitadji, celebrating Ilinden Uprising in Krusevo in 1943, during the Bulgarian annexation.
• 
  The monument of the Battle of Sliva, near Krusevo.
• 
  Ilinden (memorial) built by the Yugoslav authorities in 1974.
• 
  Celebration of Ilinden on 2 August 2011 on Mečkin Kamen, Republic of Macedonia.

See also

• Strandzha Commune
• Ilinden (memorial)
• Militsiya of the Kruševo Republic

References

Citations

1. Bana Armâneascâ - Nr39-40. Bana Armâneascâ.
2. Brown (2018), p. 71.
3. Dragi Ǵorǵiev, Lili Blagaduša, Documents Turcs sur l'insurrection de St. Élie provenants du fonds d'archives du Sultan "Yild'z", Arhiv na Makedonija, 1997, p. 131.
4. Miller (2013), p. 446.
5. Kahl (2002), p. 148.
6. Васил Кънчов. „Македония. Етнография и статистика". София, 1900, стр. 240 (Kanchov, Vasil. Macedonia – ethnography and statistics Sofia, 1900, pp. 39–53).
7. Rossos (2013), p. 109.
8. Ristovski (2009), p. 767.
9. Bechev (2009), p. 114.
10. "It would nevertheless be far-fetched to see in the Macedonian socialism an expression of national ideology... It is difficult to place the local socialist articulation of the national and social question of the late 19th and early 20th centuries entirely under the categories of today's Macedonian and Bulgarian nationalism. If Bulgarian historians today condemn the "national-nihilistic" positions of that group, their Macedonian colleagues seem frustrated by the fact that it was not "conscious" enough of Macedonians' distinct ethnic character." Entangled Histories of the Balkans – Volume Two, Roumen Daskalov, Diana Mishkova, Brill, 2013, ISBN 9004261915, p. 503.
11. Kostov (2010), p. 71.
12. De Soto & Dudwick (2000), pp. 36–37.
13. Tanner (2004), p. 215.
14. Brown (2003), pp. 81–82.
15. Diana (2009), p. 124.
16. Kirov-Majski wrote on the history of the IMRO and authored in 1923 the play "Ilinden" in the dialect of his native town (Kruševo). The play is the only direct source containing the Kruševo Manifesto, the rebels' programmatic address to the neighbouring Muslim villages, which is regularly quoted by modern Macedonian history and textbooks. Dimitar Bechev Historical Dictionary of North Macedonia, Rowman & Littlefield, 2019, ISBN 1538119625, p. 166.
17. Kruševo Manifesto's historical authenticity is disputed. There is no original preserved and this fragment from Kirov's play from 1923 was proclaimed to be completely authentic by the Communist partisans in Vardar Macedonia during the Second World War. It was published by them as a separate Proclamation of the headquarters of the Krusevo rebels. For more see: Keith Brown, The past in question: modern Macedonia and the uncertainties of nation, Princeton University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-691-09995-2, p. 230.
18. Kolstø (2005), p. 284.
19. MacDermott (1978), p. 387.
20. There was even an attempt to form a kind of revolutionary government led by the socialist Nikola Karev. The Krushevo manifesto was declared, assuring the population that the uprising was against the Sultan and not against Muslims in general, and that all peoples would be included. As the population of Krushevo was two thirds hellenised "Vlachs" (Aromanians) and Patriarchist Slavs, this was a wise move. Despite these promises the insurgent flew Bulgarian flags everywhere and in many places the uprising did entail attacks on Muslim Turks and Albanians who themselves organised for self-defence." Who are the Macedonians? Hugh Poulton, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 1995, ISBN 1850652384, p. 57.
21. Brown (2016), p. 149. sfnp error: no target: CITEREFBrown2016 (help)
22. Aromanian consciousness was not developed until the late 19th century, and was influenced by the rise of Romanian national movement. As result, wealthy, urbanized Ottoman Vlachs were culturally hellenised during 17–19th century and some of them bulgarized during the late 19th and early 20th. century. Raymond Detrez, 2014, Historical Dictionary of Bulgaria, Rowman & Littlefield, ISBN 1442241802, p. 520.
23. Коста Църнушанов, Македонизмът и съпротивата на Македония срещу него, Университетско изд. "Св. Климент Охридски", София, 1992, стр. 132.
24. Андрей (1996), pp. 60–70.
25. Rossos (2013), p. 105.
26. Jowett (2012), p. 21.
27. Liotta (2001), p. 293.
28. Phillips (2004), p. 27.
29. Gross (2018), p. 128.
30. Цочо В. Билярски, Из рапортите на Наум Томалевски до ЦК на ВМРО за мисията му в Западна Европа; В „Иван Михайлов в обектива на полиция, дипломация, разузнаване и преса“, Университетско издателство "Св. Климент Охридски", 2006, ISBN 9789549384079.
31. Miller (1975), p. 128.
32. Daskalov & Mishkova (2013), p. 534.
33. Kostov (2010), p. 84.
34. Frusetta (2004), pp. 110–115.
35. Roudometof (2002), p. 61.
36. Kostov (2010), p. 71.
37. Brown (2003), p. 81.
38. Kolstø (2016), p. 188.
39. Brown (2018), p. 191.
40. Meckin Kamen monument – Travel to Macedonia.
41. "Беше наполно прав и Мисирков во своjата фундаментална критика за Востанието и неговите раководители. Неговите укажуваньа се покажаа наполно точни во послешната практика. На пр., во ослободеното Крушево се формира градска управа составена од "Бугари", Власи и Гркомани, па во зачуваните писмени акти не фигурираат токму Македонци(!)..." Блаже Ристовски, "Столетиjа на македонската свест", Скопје, Култура, 2001, стр. 458.
42. "We, the People: Politics of National Peculiarity in Southeastern Europe" Diana Mishkova, Central European University Press, 2009, ISBN 9639776289, p. 124: Ristovski regrets the fact that the "government" of the "republic" (nowadays held to be a symbol of Macedonian statehood) was actually composed of two "Greeks", two "Bulgarians" and one "Romanian". cf. Ristovski (2001).

Sources

• Андрей, Даниела (1996). Големите власи сред българите: ономастична просопография (in Bulgarian). Знак`94. ISBN 978-954-8709-08-8.
• Bechev, Dimitar (2009). Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-6295-1.
• Brown, Keith (2003). The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-09995-2.
• Brown, Keith (2018). The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691188430.
• Daskalov, Roumen; Mishkova, Diana (2013). Entangled Histories of the Balkans - Volume Two: Transfers of Political Ideologies and Institutions. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-26191-4.
• De Soto, Hermine G.; Dudwick, Nora (2000). Fieldwork Dilemmas: Anthropologists in Postsocialist States. Univ of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-16374-7.
• Frusetta, James (2004). "Common Heroes, Divided Claims: IMRO Between Macedonia and Bulgaria". Ideologies and National Identities. Central European University Press. ISBN 978-963-9241-82-4.
• Gross, Feliks (2018). Violence in politics: Terror and political assassination in Eastern Europe and Russia. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN 978-3-11-138244-9.
• Jowett, Philip (20 March 2012). Armies of the Balkan Wars 1912–13: The priming charge for the Great War. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-84908-419-2.
• Kahl, Thede (2002). "The Ethnicity of Aromanians after 1990: the Identity of a Minority that Behaves like a Majority". Ethnologia Balkanica. 6. LIT Verlag Münster: 145–169.
• Kolstø, Pål (2005). Myths and boundaries in south-eastern Europe. Hurst & Co. ISBN 1850657726.
• Kolstø, Pål (2016). Strategies of Symbolic Nation-building in South Eastern Europe. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-04936-4.
• Kostov, Chris (2010). Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900–1996. Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-0343-0196-1.
• Liotta, P. H. (2001). Dismembering the State: The Death of Yugoslavia and why it Matters. Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0-7391-0212-1.
• MacDermott, Mercia (1978). Freedom Or Death: The Life of Gotsé Delchev. Pluto Press. ISBN 0904526321.
• Miller, Marshall Lee (1975). Bulgaria During the Second World War. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-0870-8.
• Miller, William (2013). Ottoman Empire and Its Successors 1801–1927: With an Appendix, 1927–1936. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-68659-5.
• Diana, Mishkova (2009). We, the People: Politics of National Peculiarity in Southeastern Europe. Central European University Press. ISBN 978-963-9776-28-9.
• Palairet, Michael (2016). Macedonia: A Voyage through History (Vol. 2, from the Fifteenth Century to the Present). Cambridge Scholars. ISBN 978-1-4438-8849-3.
• Phillips, John (2004). Macedonia: Warlords and Rebels in the Balkans. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 0857714511.
• Rossos, Andrew (2013). Macedonia and the Macedonians: A History. Hoover Press. ISBN 978-0-8179-4883-2.
• Roudometof, Victor (2002). Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-0-2759-7648-4.
• Ristovski, Blaže (2009). Macedonian Encyclopedia (in Macedonian). Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts. ISBN 978-6-0820-3023-4.
• Tanner, Arno (2004). The Forgotten Minorities of Eastern Europe: The history and today of selected ethnic groups in five countries. East-West Books. ISBN 952-91-6808-X.

Sources

• Силянов, Христо. Освободителните борби на Македония, т. I, София 1933, гл. VI.1 (in Bulgarian)
• 13-те дена на Крушевската република, Георги Томалевски (in Bulgarian)