Gotse Delchev

[12] Also for him, like for many prominent people,[13] originating from an area with mixed population,[14] the idea of being 'Macedonian' acquired the importance of a certain native loyalty, that constructed a specific spirit of "local patriotism"[15][16] and "multi-ethnic regionalism".

[17][18] He maintained the slogan promoted by William Ewart Gladstone, "Macedonia for the Macedonians", including all different nationalities inhabiting the area.

[19][20][21] In this way, his outlook included a wide range of such disparate ideas like Bulgarian patriotism, Macedonian regionalism, anti-nationalism, and incipient socialism.

[22][23] As a result, his political agenda became the establishment through revolution of an autonomous Macedono-Adrianople supranational state into the framework of the Ottoman Empire, as a prelude to its incorporation within a future Balkan Federation.

He was born to a large family on 4 February 1872 (23 January according to the Julian calendar) in Kılkış (Kukush), then in the Ottoman Empire (today in Greece), to Nikola and Sultana.

[38] He also read widely in the town's chitalishte (community cultural center), where he was impressed with revolutionary books, and was especially imbued with thoughts of the liberation of Bulgaria.

In June 1892, Delchev and the journalist Kosta Shahov, a chairman of the Young Macedonian Literary Society, met in Sofia with the bookseller from Thessaloniki, Ivan Hadzhinikolov.

Delchev explained that he had no intention of remaining an officer and promised after graduating from the Military School, he would return to Macedonia to join the organization.

[49] However, as a rule, most of SMAC's leaders were officers with stronger connections with the governments, waging terrorist struggle against the Ottomans in the hope of provoking a war and thus Bulgarian annexation of both areas.

In late 1895 he arrived in Bulgaria's capital Sofia from the name of the "Bulgarian Central Macedonian-Adrianopolitan Revolutionary Committee" to prevent any foreign interference in its work.

[50] In 1896, he advocated for the establishment of a secret revolutionary network, that would prepare the population for an armed uprising against the Ottoman rule, based on Levski's example.

[11] After spending the next school year (1895/1896) as a teacher in the town of Bansko, in May 1896 he was arrested by the Ottoman authorities as a person suspected of revolutionary activity and spent about a month in jail.

[53] Delchev envisioned independent production of weapons and traveled in 1897 to Odessa,[29] where he met with Armenian revolutionaries Stepan Zorian and Christapor Mikaelian to exchange terrorist skills and especially bomb-making.

[58] After the assassination of the Romanian newspaper editor Ștefan Mihăileanu in July, who had published unflattering remarks about the Macedonian affairs, Bulgaria and Romania were brought to the brink of war.

For a short time in the late 1890s Bulgarian lieutenant Boris Sarafov, who was a former schoolmate of Delchev became its leader, as he was promoted as a candidate by him and Petrov.

Towards the end of March 1903, Delchev with his detachment destroyed the railway bridge over the Angista river, aiming to test the new guerrilla tactics.

[10][72] He was killed on 4 May 1903, with a shot to the chest,[43] in a skirmish with Ottoman troops led by his former schoolmate Hussein Tefikov in the village of Banitsa.

[2] After being identified by the local authorities in Serres, the bodies of Delchev and his comrade, Dimitar Gushtanov, were buried in a common grave in Banitsa.

[76] Two of his brothers, Mitso and Milan were also killed fighting against the Ottomans as militants in the SMARO chetas of the Bulgarian voivodas Hristo Chernopeev and Krstjo Asenov in 1901 and 1903, respectively.

[83][84] The international, cosmopolitan views of Delchev could be summarized in his proverbial sentence: "I understand the world solely as a field for cultural competition among the peoples".

[85][86] Per MacDermott, his saying presupposes a world without political and economic conflicts and one which has a very high degree of mutual friendship and co-operation on an international level.

[92] Delchev, like other left-wing activists, vaguely determined the bonds in the future common Macedonian-Adrianople autonomous region on the one hand,[93] and on the other between it, the Principality of Bulgaria, and de facto annexed Eastern Rumelia.

[95] Per Bulgarian academic sources and his contemporaries, Delchev supported Macedonia's eventual incorporation into Bulgaria,[96][97] or its inclusion into a future Balkan Confederative Republic.

However, during the war these ideas were supported by the pro-Yugoslav Macedonian communist partisans, who strengthened their positions in 1943, referring to the ideals of Gotse Delchev.

[110] In 1946, communist activist Vasil Ivanovski acknowledged that Delchev did not have a clear view of a "Macedonian national character", but stated that his struggle made the free and autonomous Macedonia a possibility.

[109] On 7 October 1946, under pressure from Moscow,[111] as part of the policy to foster the development of Macedonian national consciousness, Delchev's remains were transported to Skopje.

Delchev was described in SR Macedonia not only as an anti-Ottoman freedom fighter, but also as a hero, who had opposed the aggressive aspirations of the pro-Bulgarian factions in the liberation movement.

[127] On 2 August 2017, the Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and his Macedonian colleague Zoran Zaev placed wreaths at the grave of Delchev on the occasion of the 114th anniversary of the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising.

[136] Per anthropologist Keith Brown and political scientist Alexis Heraclides, the identity of Delchev and other IMRO figures is "open to different interpretations",[137] that are incompatible with the views of modern Balkan nationalisms.

[152] Three citizens were detained, fined and banned from entering the country for 3 years, due to attempting to physically assault policemen.

Delchev's mother - Sultana
Delchev's father – Nikola
Delchev (right) and his former classmate from Kilkis , Imov as officer cadets in Sofia .
The diploma of Delchev from his graduation from the Military school in Sofia . [ note 2 ]
Diploma from the Bulgarian Exarchate 's school in Štip , signed by Delchev as a teacher.
Letter from Delchev to the Bulgarian Exarch Yosif , where he resigned as head teacher in Bansko .
Letter from Delchev to Nikola Maleshevski dated 5 January 1899, where he called for unity among Bulgarians. [ 45 ] [ 46 ] [ 29 ]
Excerpt from the statute of BMARC, with corrections made by hand, personally by Gotse Delchev with intention to work out the new statute of the SMARO.
Excerpt from the statute of SMARO , whose author was Delchev. [ note 3 ]
The American daily New York Times 's report from 11 May 1903, about the death of Delchev.
Telegram by the Ottoman authorities to their Embassy in Sofia informing, Delchev, one of the leaders of the Bulgarian Committees, was killed. [ 68 ] [ 69 ]
The first biographical book about Delchev, issued in 1904 by his friend, the Bulgarian poet and revolutionary Peyo Yavorov .
The ruins of Kilkis after the Second Balkan War .
The bell tower among ruins of the village of Banitsa, where Delchev was buried until 1913.
The moving of the remains of Delchev to the seat of the Ilinden Organization in Sofia in 1923. Until then, the bones were kept in the house of the revolutionary Mihail Chakov in Plovdiv, and between 1913 and 1919 in his home in Xanthi (then part of Bulgaria). [ 70 ]
The chest in which Delchev's remains were kept until 1946. The text on it reads: "We swear the future generations these sacred bones to be buried in the capital of independent Macedonia". [ 71 ]
The restored grave-place of Delchev among the ruins of Banitsa during World War II Bulgarian annexation of Northern Greece .
The moving of the remains of Delchev from Sofia to Skopje in October 1946. This was a failed effort of Stalin to placate Tito, pressuring the Bulgarian communists to allow this, [ 104 ] as part of the policy of developing the Macedonian national identity. The translation of the Bulgarian caption is given in a note. [ note 4 ]