Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization

"IMRO" redirects here. For other uses, see IMRO (disambiguation).

Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization
  • Вътрешна македонска революционна организация (Bulgarian)
FounderHristo Tatarchev, Petar Poparsov, Hristo Batandzhiev, Dame Gruev, Ivan Hadzhinikolov, Andon Dimitrov
LeaderGotse Delchev, Dame Gruev, Gyorche Petrov, Boris Sarafov, Yane Sandanski, Todor Alexandrov, Aleksandar Protogerov, Ivan Mihaylov
Foundation23 October 1893 (4 November N.S.)
Thessaloniki, Salonika Vilayet, Ottoman Empire (now Greece)
Dissolved14 June 1934
Group(s)BPMARO, MFO, ITRO, Ilinden
BSRB, IMRO (U), MSRC, SMAC, IDRO, Boatmen of Thessaloniki
MotivesBefore WWI: Autonomy for Macedonia and Adrianople regions
During WWI: Incorporation of Vardar Macedonia, Belomorie and Pomoravie within Bulgaria
After WWI: Independent Macedonia
IdeologyMacedonia for the Macedonians[1]
Major actionsMiss Stone Affair
Kokošinje murders
Štip massacre
Assassination of Alexander I of Yugoslavia
Kadrifakovo massacre
Garvan massacre
StatusRevolutionary Organisation
Allies Kingdom of Bulgaria
Opponents Ottoman Empire
 Kingdom of Serbia
 Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Greece
Battles and wars
Flag

The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO; Bulgarian: Вътрешна македонска революционна организация (ВМРО), romanized: Vatrešna Makedonska Revoljucionna Organizacija (VMRO); Macedonian: Внатрешна македонска револуционерна организација (ВМРО), romanized: Vnatrešna Makedonska Revolucionerna Organizacija (VMRO)), was a secret revolutionary society founded in the Ottoman territories in Europe, that operated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[2]

Founded in 1893 in Salonica,[3] it initially aimed to gain autonomy for Macedonia and Adrianople regions in the Ottoman Empire, however, it later became an agent serving Bulgarian interests in Balkan politics.[4] IMRO modeled itself after the earlier Bulgarian Internal Revolutionary Organization of Vasil Levski and accepted its motto "Freedom or Death" (Свобода или смърть).[5] According to the memoirs of some founding and ordinary members, in the Organization's earliest statute from 1894, the membership was reserved exclusively for Bulgarians.[6][7][8][9] It used the Bulgarian language in all its documents and in its correspondence.[10] The Organisation founded its Foreign Representation in Sofia, Bulgaria in 1896. Starting in the same year, it fought the Ottomans using guerrilla tactics, and in this, they were successful, even establishing a state within a state in some regions, including their tax collectors. This effort escalated in 1903 into the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising. The fighting involved about 15,000 IMRO irregulars and 40,000 Ottoman soldiers. After the uprising failed, and the Ottomans destroyed some 100 villages, the IMRO resorted to more systematic forms of terrorism targeting civilians.[3] During the Balkan Wars and the First World War, the organization supported the Bulgarian army and joined Bulgarian war-time authorities when they temporarily took control over parts of Thrace and Macedonia. In this period, autonomism as a political tactic was abandoned, and annexationist positions were supported, aiming eventual incorporation of occupied areas into Bulgaria.[11]

After the First World War the combined Macedonian-Thracian revolutionary movement separated into two detached organizations, IMRO and ITRO.[12] After this moment the IMRO earned a reputation as an ultimate terror network, seeking to change state frontiers in the Macedonian regions of Greece and Serbia (later Yugoslavia).[13] They contested the partitioning of Macedonia and launched raids from their Petrich stronghold into Greek and Yugoslav territory. Their base of operation in Bulgaria was jeopardized by the Treaty of Niš, and the IMRO reacted by assassinating Bulgarian prime minister Aleksandar Stamboliyski in 1923, with the cooperation of other Bulgarian elements opposed to him.[14] In 1925 the Greek army launched a cross-border operation to reduce the IMRO base area, but it was ultimately stopped by the League of Nations, and IMRO attacks resumed.[15] In the interwar period the IMRO also cooperated with the Croatian Ustaše, and their ultimate victim was Alexander I of Yugoslavia, assassinated in France in 1934.[16][17] After the Bulgarian coup d'état of 1934, their Petrich stronghold was subjected to a military crackdown by the Bulgarian army,[14] and the IMRO was reduced to a marginal phenomenon.[18]

The organization changed its name on several occasions. After the fall of communism in the region, numerous parties claimed the IMRO name and lineage to legitimize themselves.[19] Among them, in Bulgaria a right-wing party carrying the prefix "VMRO" was established in the 1990s, while in then Republic of Macedonia a right-wing party was established under the name "VMRO-DPMNE".

Excerpt from the statute of BMARC, (1894 or 1896; in Bulgarian)

Statute of the Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees

Chapter I. – Goal
Art. 1. The goal of BMARC is to secure full political autonomy for the Macedonia and Adrianople regions.
Art. 2. To achieve this goal they [the committees] shall raise the awareness of self-defense in the Bulgarian population in the regions mentioned in Art. 1., disseminate revolutionary ideas – printed or verbal, and prepare and carry on a general uprising.

Chapter II. – Structure and Organization

Art. 3. A member of BMARC can be any Bulgarian, independent of gender, ...
Excerpt from the statute of SMARO, (1896 or 1902; in Bulgarian) Statute of the Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization Chapter I. – Goal
Art. 1. The Secret Macedonian-Adrianople organization has the goal of uniting all the disgruntled elements in Macedonia and the Adrianople region, regardless of their nationality, to win, through a revolution, a full political autonomy for these two regions.

Art. 2. To achieve this goal, the organization fights to throw over the chauvinist propaganda and nationalist quarrels that are splintering and discouraging the Macedonian and Adrianople populations in his struggle against the common enemy; acts to bring in a revolutionary spirit and consciousness among the population, and uses all the means and efforts for the forthcoming and timely armament of the population with all that is needed for a general and universal uprising.

Chapter II. – Structure and Organization
Art. 3. The Secret Macedonon-Adrianoplitan revolutionary organization consists of local revolutionary organizations (bands) consisting of the members of local towns or villages.

Art. 4. A member of SMARO can be any Macedonian, or Adrianoplitan...
Excerpt from the statute of IMARO, 1906 (in Bulgarian) 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.

Art. 2. The Organization opposes any other country's intentions to divide and conquer these two regions.

Chapter II. – Means

Art. 3. To achieve this goal, the Organization aims to abolish chauvinist propaganda and nationalistic disputes, which split and weaken...
Poster of most important members of IMARO and SMAC between 1893 and 1913.
  1. ^ For more see: Tchavdar Marinov, We, the Macedonians, The Paths of Macedonian Supra-Nationalism (1878–1912) in: Mishkova Diana ed., 2009, We, the People: Politics of National Peculiarity in Southeastern Europe, Central European University Press, ISBN 9639776289, pp. 117-120.
  2. ^ Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, written by Loring Danforth, an article in Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
  3. ^ a b Mark Biondich (2011). The Balkans: Revolution, War, and Political Violence Since 1878. Oxford University Press. pp. 67–69. ISBN 978-0-19-929905-8.
  4. ^ Combs, Cindy C.; Slann, Martin W. (2009). Encyclopedia of Terrorism, Revised Edition. Infobase Publishing. p. 135. ISBN 978-1-4381-1019-6.
  5. ^ Duncan M. Perry, The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian Liberation Movements, 1893–1903, Duke University Press, 1988, ISBN 0822308134, pp. 39–40.
  6. ^ Vladimir Cretulescu (2016) "The Memoirs of Cola Nicea: A Case-Study on the Discursive Identity Construction of the Aromanian Armatoles in Early 20th Century Macedonia." Res Historica 41, p. 128.
  7. ^ Alexander Maxwell, "Slavic Macedonian Nationalism: From 'Regional' to 'Ethnic'", In Klaus Roth and Ulf Brunnbauer (eds.), Region, Regional Identity and Regionalism in Southeastern Europe, Volume 1 (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2008), ISBN 9783825813871, p. 135.
  8. ^ Victor Roudometof (2002) Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict. Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question. Bloomsbury Academic, ISBN 9780275976484, p. 112.
  9. ^ Alexis Heraclides, The Macedonian Question and the Macedonians: A History. Routledge, 2020, ISBN 9780367218263, p. 240.
  10. ^ "The Macedonian Revolutionary Organization used the Bulgarian standard language in all its programmatic statements and its correspondence was solely in the Bulgarian language...After 1944 all the literature of Macedonian writers, memoirs of Macedonian leaders, and important documents had to be translated from Bulgarian into the newly invented Macedonian." For more see: Bernard A. Cook ed., Europe Since 1945: An Encyclopedia, Volume 2, Taylor & Francis, 2001, ISBN 0815340583, p. 808.
  11. ^ Frusetta, James Walter (2006). Bulgaria's Macedonia: Nation-building and state-building, centralization and autonomy in Pirin Macedonia, 1903–1952. University of Maryland, College Park. pp. 137–140. ISBN 0-542-96184-9. Retrieved 14 November 2011.
  12. ^ Bechev, Dimitar (2009). Historical dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia. Scarecrow Press. p. 100. ISBN 978-0-8108-5565-6. Retrieved 14 November 2011.
  13. ^ "Terrorist Transformations: IMRO and the Politics of Violence. Keith Brown. Brown University, The Watson Institute for International Studies". Watsoninstitute.org. Archived from the original on 4 September 2007. Retrieved 14 November 2011.
  14. ^ a b Mark Biondich (2011). The Balkans: Revolution, War, and Political Violence Since 1878. Oxford University Press. pp. 112–114. ISBN 978-0-19-929905-8.
  15. ^ Mark Biondich (2011). The Balkans: Revolution, War, and Political Violence Since 1878. Oxford University Press. p. 117. ISBN 978-0-19-929905-8.
  16. ^ Robert Bideleux; Ian Jeffries (2007). The Balkans: a post-communist history. Taylor & Francis. p. 190. ISBN 978-0-415-22962-3.
  17. ^ Frederick B. Chary (2011). The History of Bulgaria. ABC-CLIO. p. 71. ISBN 978-0-313-38446-2.
  18. ^ Mark Biondich (2011). The Balkans: Revolution, War, and Political Violence Since 1878. Oxford University Press. p. 151. ISBN 978-0-19-929905-8.
  19. ^ James Frusetta (2004). "Common Heroes, Divided Claims: IMRO Between Macedonia and Bulgaria". In John R. Lampe, Mark Mazower (ed.). Ideologies and national identities: the case of twentieth-century Southeastern Europe. Central European University Press. pp. 110–130. ISBN 978-963-9241-82-4.