Gotse Delchev

Georgi Nikolov Delchev (; ; 4 February 1872 – 4 May 1903), known as Gotse Delchev or Goce Delčev (), was a prominent Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary (komitadji) and one of the most important leaders of what is commonly known as the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO). He was active in the Ottoman-ruled Macedonia and Adrianople regions, as well as in Bulgaria, at the turn of the 20th century. Delchev was IMRO's foreign representative in Sofia, the capital of the Principality of Bulgaria. As such, he was also a member of the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee (SMAC) for a period, participating in the work of its governing body. Although he considered the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising premature, Delchev participated in its preparation. He was killed in a skirmish with an Ottoman unit on the eve of the uprising.

Born into a Bulgarian Millet affiliated family in Kukush (today Kilkis in Greece), then in the Salonika vilayet of the Ottoman Empire, in his youth he was inspired by the ideals of earlier Bulgarian revolutionaries such as Vasil Levski and Hristo Botev, who envisioned the creation of a Bulgarian republic of ethnic and religious equality, as part of an imagined Balkan Federation. Delchev completed his secondary education in the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki and entered the Military School of His Princely Highness in Sofia, but at the final stage of his study, he was dismissed for holding socialist literature. Then he returned to Ottoman Macedonia and worked as a Bulgarian Exarchate schoolteacher, and immediately became an activist of the newly-found revolutionary movement in 1894.

Although considering himself to be an inheritor of the Bulgarian revolutionary traditions, For him, like for many Slavic Macedonian prominent intellectuals, originating from an area with mixed population, the idea of being 'Macedonian' acquired the importance of a certain native loyalty, that constructed a specific spirit of "local patriotism" and "multi-ethnic regionalism". He maintained the slogan promoted by William Ewart Gladstone, "Macedonia for the Macedonians", including all different nationalities inhabiting the area. Delchev was also an adherent of incipient socialism. His political agenda became the establishment through revolution of autonomy for Macedonia and Adrianople regions into the framework of the Ottoman Empire, which in the case of Macedonia would lead to her full independence. In this way he emphasized the importance of cooperation among all ethnic groups in the territories concerned in order to obtain full political autonomy. Delchev's autonomist ideas have stimulated the subsequent development of Macedonian nationalism. Per some of his contemporaries, closely associated with him, Delchev supported Macedonia's incorporation into Bulgaria as another option too.]]

Early life

He was born to a large Bulgarian 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. He was christened as Georgi. During the 1860s and 1870s, Kukush was under the jurisdiction of the Bulgarian Uniate Church, but after 1884 most of its population gradually joined the Bulgarian Exarchate. As a student, Delchev studied first at the Bulgarian Uniate primary school and then at the Bulgarian Exarchate junior high school. 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 1888 his family sent him to the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki, where he organized and led a secret revolutionary brotherhood. Delchev also distributed revolutionary literature, which he acquired from the school's graduates who studied in Bulgaria. Bulgarian students graduating from high school were faced with few career prospects and Delchev decided to follow the path of his former schoolmate Boris Sarafov, entering the military school in Sofia in 1891. He became disappointed with life in Bulgaria, especially the commercialized life of the society in Sofia and with the authoritarian politics of the prime minister Stefan Stambolov, In September 1894, only a month before graduation, he was expelled for his socialist and revolutionary ideas.

Teacher and revolutionary

thumb|150px|right|Diploma from the [[Bulgarian Exarchate's school in Štip, signed by Delchev as a teacher.]]

thumb|160px|Letter from Delchev to the Bulgarian [[Joseph I of Bulgaria|Exarch Yosif, where he resigned as head teacher in Bansko.]]

thumb|160px|right|Letter from Delchev to Nikola Maleshevski dated 5 January 1899, written on the occasion of certain disagreements among members of the Organization, where he called for unity among Bulgarians. It was decided at a meeting in [[Resen (town)|Resen in August 1894 to preferably recruit teachers from the Bulgarian schools as committee members. There he met another teacher, Dame Gruev, who was also among the founders of IMRO and a leader of the newly established local committee. However, as a rule, most of SMAC's leaders were officers with strong connections with the Bulgarian governments and prince Ferdinand, 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. In February 1896, he met SMAC's new leader Danail Nikolaev, their conversation was turbulent and short. Namely, Nikolaev asserted that the only way to freedom was with trained Bulgarian soldiers and clandestine aid and finance of the Bulgarian government. Moreover, he considered Delchev a brash youngster and deemed unreal and absurd the idea of peasant uprising by revolutionary impulsion of the Macedonian Slavs. Afterwards, Delchev gave his resignation as a teacher and in the same year, he moved back to Bulgaria.

Revolutionary activity as part of the leadership of the Organization

The Central Committee regarded as necessary to have trustworthy permanent representatives in Sofia in order to mediate the tense relations with the SMAC, because IMRO looked to avoid a break since it was largely dependent on Bulgarian state material and financial assistance. Thus, from November 1896, Delchev was put in charge of the Foreign Representation of the IMRO alongside Petrov who joined him in March 1897. Besides the dialogue with the SMAC, they were assigned to acquire funds or additional support and preserve ties with all those in the Bulgaria who were approving of the Macedonian cause. That resulted in the establishment of a bomb manufacturing plant in the village of Sabler near Kyustendil in Bulgaria. The bombs were later smuggled across the Ottoman border into Macedonia. He was the first to organize and lead a band into Macedonia with the purpose of robbing or kidnapping rich Turks. This activity of his had variable success.

After 1897 there was a rapid growth of secret Bulgarian army officers' brotherhoods, whose members by 1900 numbered about a thousand. Much of the brotherhoods' activists were involved in the revolutionary activity of the IMRO, collecting funds and petitions in support of the Macedonian cause. They were formed on the initiative of Petrov by officers with whom he managed to develop good raport, one of them being the lieutenant Boris Sarafov. Relations with the SMAC did not improve and remained tense until 1899. In May that year, on the 6th Congress of the SMAC, Sarafov was elected as new president after being proposed by Petrov and Delchev. In March 1900, Gotse Delchev, accompanied by Lazar Madzharov, went on a tour of Strandzha Mountain, aiming better coordination between Macedonian and Thracian revolutionary committees, returning to Burgas in mid-April. After the SMAC's 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. At that time Delchev was preparing to organize a detachment which, in a possible war to support the Bulgarian army by its actions in Northern Dobruja, where a compact Bulgarian population was available. Meanwhile, Sarafov was reelected as president in August, and with that the involvement of Delchev and Petrov in the SMAC's work resumed. However, deep disagreements still existed, essentially concerning the ultimate aim of the autonomy which in IMRO's case was independent Macedonia as part of a future Balkan Federation, while for the SMAC it was unification with Bulgaria. Other instances were difference in mentality and social origin between "schoolteachers" and "officers", of which the latter desired to command the liberation operations, as well as the distrust by them in the idea of a peasant uprising led by teachers. The chief figure in this contemptuous attitude was General Ivan Tsonchev, who was intimate with the Bulgarian prince Ferdinand and his court. A general uprising was debated and under the influence of Garvanov it was decided to stage one in May 1903. The opponents of the decision refused to recognize it. Thus Delchev and Petrov established terror units, which were associated with the anarchist organization Macedonian Secret Revolutionary Committee.]]

thumb|160px|right|The first biographical book about Delchev, issued in 1904 by his friend, the [[Bulgarians|Bulgarian poet and revolutionary Peyo Yavorov.]]

thumb|200px|right|The ruins of [[Kilkis after the Second Balkan War.]]

right|thumb|The bell tower among ruins of the village of Banitsa, where Delchev was buried until 1913.

thumb|right|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).]]

thumb|180px|right|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".

thumb|200px|right|The restored grave-place of Delchev among the ruins of [[Banitsa (ruins)|Banitsa during World War II Bulgarian annexation of Northern Greece.]]

In late April he set out for Thessaloniki to meet with Dame Gruev after his release from prison in March 1903. Delchev hoped that he will argue against the uprising, but Gruev wanted it to proceed since the course of events had become unrepairable. Therefore, Delchev agreed to prepare as much he can in the Serres district and headed that way with the intention of holding a regional congress in Serres to lay out his plans for the uprising. With his cheta he arrived in the village of Banitsa on 2 May for a meeting with Dimo Hadzhidimov. Soon after, they were surrounded and a skirmish followed in which Delchev was killed on 4 May 1903, with a shot to the chest, A consular source reported that the skirmish occurred after betrayal by local villager. The Ottomans sent his severed head to Salonika. Two of his brothers, Mitso and Milan were also killed fighting against the Ottomans as militants in the IMRO chetas of the Bulgarian voivodas Hristo Chernopeev and Krastyo Asenov in 1901 and 1903, respectively. The Bulgarian government later granted a pension to their father Nikola, because of the contribution of his sons to the freedom of Macedonia. During the Second Balkan War of 1913, Kilkis, which had been annexed by Bulgaria in the First Balkan War, was taken by the Greeks. Virtually all of its pre-war 7,000 Bulgarian inhabitants, including Delchev's family, were expelled to Bulgaria by the Greek Army. During Balkan Wars, when Bulgaria was temporarily in control of the area, Delchev's remains were transferred to Xanthi, then in Bulgaria. After Western Thrace was ceded to Greece in 1919, the relic was brought to Plovdiv and in 1923 to Sofia, where it rested until after World War II. During World War II, the area was taken by the Kingdom of Bulgaria again and Delchev's grave near Banitsa was restored. In May 1943, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of his death, a memorial plaque was set in Banitsa, in the presence of his sisters and other public figures.

The first biographical book about Delchev was issued in 1904 by his friend and comrade in arms, the Bulgarian poet Peyo Yavorov. The most detailed biography of Delchev in English was written by English historian Mercia MacDermott called Freedom or Death: The Life of Gotse Delchev, published in 1978 and translated into Bulgarian in 1979.

Views

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". 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. Thus, as a young cadet in Sofia Delchev became a member of a left-wing circle, where he was influenced by modern Marxist and Bakunin's ideas. His views were formed also under the influence of the ideas of earlier anti-Ottoman fighters as Levski, Botev, and Stoyanov, Delchev's main goal, along with the other revolutionaries, was the implementation of Article 23 of the treaty, aimed at acquiring full autonomy of Macedonia and the Adrianople. Delchev firmly opposed the inclusion of Macedonia into Bulgaria. According to historians Dennis P. Hupchick and Fikret Adanir, he was part of IMRO's leftist faction. On the other hand, per Bulgarian academic sources and some of his contemporaries, Delchev supported Macedonia's eventual incorporation into Bulgaria. Per Anastasia Karakasidou, Delchev and others with same ideas like him often left the links between an independent Macedonia and neighboring Bulgaria ill-defined. According to researcher James Horncastle, he believed that revolutionary terror was necessary to create an autonomous Macedonia. Per Delchev, no outside force could or would help the Organization and it ought to rely only upon itself and only upon its own will and strength. He thought that any intervention by Bulgaria would provoke intervention by the neighboring states as well and could result in Macedonia and Thrace being torn apart. That is why the peoples of these two regions had to win their own freedom and independence, within the frontiers of an autonomous Macedonian-Adrianople state.

Legacy

Communist period

thumb|right|The moving of the remains of Delchev from Sofia to Skopje in October 1946. The translation of the Bulgarian caption is given in a note.

During World War II, the Macedonian communist partisans associated their struggle with the ideals of Delchev and IMRO. The culmination of the struggle was the establishment of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia in 1944. In late 1944, new communist regimes came into power in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia and their policy on the Macedonian Question was committed to the supporting of a distinct Macedonian nationality. The region of Macedonia was proclaimed as the connecting link for the establishment of a future Balkan Communist Federation.

The newly formed Socialist Republic of Macedonia was integrated into the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and was characterized as the natural result of Delchev's aspirations for autonomous Macedonia. Initially some of the Macedonian communist leaders, such as Lazar Koliševski, questioned the extent of Delchev's alleged Macedonian national consciousness. 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. as a gesture of goodwill and as part of the policy to foster the development of Macedonian national consciousness, Delchev's remains were transported from Sofia to Skopje. On 10 October, the bones were enshrined in a marble sarcophagus in the yard of the church "Sveti Spas", where they have stayed since. As a result, Delchev was declared an ethnic Macedonian hero and a symbol of the republic. His name is referred to in the Macedonian anthem - Today over Macedonia. The town of Delčevo was named after him in 1950. Macedonian school textbooks began even to hint at Bulgarian complicity in Delchev's death. Aiming to enforce the belief that Delchev was an ethnic Macedonian, all documents written by him in standard Bulgarian were translated into standard Macedonian and presented as originals. The claims on Delchev's Bulgarian self-identification thus were portrayed as a recent Bulgarian chauvinist attitude of long provenance.

In the People's Republic of Bulgaria, before the late 1950s, Delchev was given mostly regional recognition in Pirin Macedonia and the town Gotse Delchev was named after him in 1950.

Post-communism

Delchev is regarded in Bulgaria and North Macedonia as a national hero. His ethnic identity has continued to be disputed in North Macedonia, serving as a point of contention with Bulgaria. Some attempts were made for the joint celebration of Delchev between both countries. Bulgarian diplomats were also attacked when honoring Delchev by Macedonian nationalists in 2012. 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 Uprising. Zaev expressed an interest to negotiate about Delchev. A joint commission on historical issues was also formed in 2018 to resolve controversial historical readings, including the dispute about Delchev's ethnic identity, which has been unresolved. On 9 October 2019, the Bulgarian government issued its "Framework Position" on the enlargement of the European Union for North Macedonia and Albania, including a condition for the joint historical commission to reach an agreement about Delchev. The Association of Historians in North Macedonia came out against the calls for a joint celebration of Delchev, seeing them as a threat to Macedonian national identity. Per Macedonian historian Dragi Gjorgiev, the myth of Delchev is so significant among ethnic Macedonians that it is more important than documents, books, and pieces written by historians. Macedonian philosopher Katerina Kolozova opined that Bulgaria should not negotiate regarding his self-identification, seeing him as important for the national myths of Bulgaria and North Macedonia. Per anthropologist Keith Brown and political scientist Alexis Heraclides, the identity of Delchev and other IMRO figures is "open to different interpretations", that are incompatible with the views of modern Balkan nationalisms. According to historian James Frusetta, during the time of the People's Republic of Bulgaria and SR Macedonia, the vague left populism and anarcho-socialism espoused by Delchev were transformed into overt socialism.

Per journalist Reuben H. Markham, Bulgarian Macedonians have regarded him as the greatest revolutionary leader. His memory has been traditionally honored by Bulgarian Macedonians. There are two peaks named after Delchev: Gotsev Vrah, the summit of Slavyanka Mountain, and Delchev Vrah or Delchev Peak on Livingston Island, South Shetland Islands in Antarctica, which was named after him by the scientists from the Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition. The Goce Delčev University of Štip in North Macedonia carries his name too. Many artifacts related to Delchev's activity are stored in different museums across Bulgaria and North Macedonia. During the time of SFR Yugoslavia, a street in Belgrade was named after Delchev. In 2015, Serbian nationalists covered the signs with the street's name and affixed new ones with the name of the Chetnik activist Kosta Pećanac. They claimed that Delchev was a Bulgarian and his name has no place there. In 2016 the street's name was changed officially by the municipal authorities to "Maršal Tolbuhin". Their motivation was that Delchev was not an ethnic Macedonian revolutionary, but a leader of an anti-Serbian organization with a pro-Bulgarian orientation. In Greece the official appeals from the Bulgarian side to the authorities to install a memorial plaque on his place of death are not answered. The memorial plaques set periodically by Bulgarians afterwards have been removed. Bulgarian tourists have been restrained occasionally from visiting the place.

On 4 February 2023, on the 151st anniversary of the birth of the revolutionary, both the Macedonian and Bulgarian side paid their respects at the St. Spas Church in Skopje separately, while the delegation of North Macedonia declined the offer to jointly lay wreaths proposed by the Bulgarian delegation. Many Bulgarian citizens who wanted to attend the event were held for hours at the border due to a claimed malfunction of the border system. However, problems with the admission of the Bulgarians continued even after the processing of their documents. As a result, many Bulgarian citizens and journalists were prevented from crossing. Three citizens were detained, fined and banned from entering the country for 3 years, due to attempting to physically assault policemen. According to their lawyer, two of them were apparently beaten. Bulgaria officially reacted sharply to these events.

Memorials

Image:GotseDelchevMonument.jpg|Monument in Gotse Delchev, Bulgaria.

Image:Гоце Делчев – Благоевград – Крум Дерменджиев.JPG|Monument in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria.

Image:Gotse Delchev Sofia.jpg|Bust in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Image:Monuments of Delcev and Gruev under Macedonian flag.JPG|Statues of Gotse Delchev and Dame Gruev on the Macedonia Square in Skopje, North Macedonia.

Image:Tomb of Gotse Delchev in the church Sv. Spas in Skopje.jpg|The tomb of Gotse Delchev in the church Sv. Spas in Skopje.

Image:Delcevstatue-cityparkskopje.JPG|Statue of Delchev in the City Park of Skopje, given as a gift by the city of Sofia in 1946

Image:Monument Goce Delcev Strumica.jpg|Monument in Strumica, North Macedonia

Image:Школото во кое учителствувал Гоце Делчев во Штип6.jpg|Rectorate of Goce Delčev University of Štip, is located in the building of the former Bulgarian Exarchate school in which Delchev was a teacher

Early life

Teacher and revolutionary

Revolutionary activity as part of the leadership of the Organization

Views

Legacy

Communist period

Post-communism

Memorials

Notes

References

Further reading

External links