Autonomy for Macedonia and Adrianople regions

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.

[2] The idea of autonomy was promoted during the 1880s, by diverse political parties in Bulgaria and in Eastern Rumelia, aimed at "national unification of Bulgarian people".

[3] This scenario was partially facilitated by the Treaty of Berlin (1878), according to which Eastern Rumelia, Macedonia and Adrianople areas were given back from Bulgaria to the Ottomans, but especially by its unrealized 23rd article, which promised future autonomy for unspecified territories in then European Turkey, settled with Christian population.

In general, an autonomous status was presumed to imply a special kind of constitution of the region, a reorganization of gendarmerie, broader representation of the local Christians in all the administration, etc.

[10] Another Bulgarian organisation called Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committee also had as its official aim the struggle for autonomy of Macedonia and Adrianople regions.

As the ideas of the Treaty of San Stefano were already unrealistic, the autonomy was the only alternative to the partition of Macedonia by the Balkan states and the assimilation of its Bulgarian population by Serbs, Greeks, etc.

In 1905 the newspaper "Revolyutsionen list" issued in Sofia and redacted by Dimo Hadzhidimov, expressed the opinion of the Serres leftist group about the autonomy as follows: " They, the Supremists, represent a complete negation of the Internal Organization – there is an abyss between it and them.

In 1919 the so-called Temporary representation of the former United Internal Revolutionary Organization founded by former members of the IMARO, issued a memorandum and send it to the representatives of the Great Powers on the Peace conference in Paris.

The idea of autonomous Macedonia was developed most significantly after the creation of the Internal Macedonan revolutionary Organization which was Bulgarian in respect of its members and proved to be well decided, of great military might and power of resistance.