[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

After fierce battles near Mečkin Kamen, the Ottomans managed to destroy the Kruševo Republic, committing atrocities against the rebel forces and the local population.

[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.