IMRO (United)

The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (United) (1925–1936); ) commonly known in English as IMRO (United), was the name of a revolutionary political organization active across the entire geographical region of Macedonia.

History

IMRO (United) was founded in 1925 in Vienna after the failure of the May Manifesto by the left-wing of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) and former Macedonian Federative Organization activists. It was under the leadership of several revolutionaries from Macedonia such as Dimitar Vlahov, Pavel Shatev, Georgi Zankov, Rizo Rizov, Vladimir Poptomov, Metodi Shatorov and Hristo Yankov. Its main objective was to free Macedonia within its geographical and economical borders, and to create a new political entity which would become an equal member of the future Balkan Federative Republic. It was accepted as a partner in the Balkan Communist Federation and was sponsored directly by the Comintern, maintaining close links with the Bulgarian communist leader Georgi Dimitrov. He, as secret agent of GRU was responsible especially for the contacts with the IMRO (United).

In the publications and documents of IMRO (United), terms such as Macedonian people and Macedonian population replaced the traditional references to Macedonian Bulgarians. As early as October 1925, the first public declaration of IMRO (United) emphasized the oppressed status of the Macedonian people in Yugoslavia, Greece and mainly in Bulgaria. Some of the organization's activists claimed the Macedonians were a distinct nation, but they also retained Macedonian supranationalism.Entangled Histories of the Balkans - Volume Two: Transfers of Political Ideologies and Institutions (2013), Balkan Studies Library, Roumen Dontchev Daskalov; Diana Mishkova, BRILL, , pp. 502-525. In 1920s the IMRO (United), as a whole, defined the Slavs of Macedonia as Bulgarians. In July 1929 the branch of IMRO (United) in Pirin Macedonia classified the latter as a colony of Bulgaria, subdued to ruthless exploitation by the bourgeoisie state and the right-wing IMRO of Ivan Mihaylov. In 1929 there was a split between the leftist activists, a group headed by Mihail Gerdzhikov, Pavel Shatev, Petar Poparsov and Filip Atanasov wanted IMRO (United) to work independently and not with the support of the Comintern. They also demanded the newspaper '' Makedonsko delo'' to cease publication. By the early 1930s, IMRO (United) endorsed Macedonian nationalism. In 1934, the Resolution of the Comintern, which publicly acknowledged the existence of the Macedonian nation and Macedonian language, was published for the first time in the April issue of '' Makedonsko delo'' under the title "The Situation in Macedonia and the Tasks of IMRO (United)". The text of this historical document was prepared in the period between December 20, 1933, and January 7, 1934, by the Balkan Secretariat of the Comintern. It was accepted by the Political Secretariat in Moscow on January 11, 1934, and approved by the Executive Committee of the Comintern. In 1936, 19 IMRO (United) members were put on trial due to suspected illegal political activity. Most of them (9) listed their nationality as Macedonian, while 5 as Bulgarian, and the rest were tried in absentia. Until its dissolution in 1936 it sought to act as part of a Bulgarian Communist Party, Communist Party of Yugoslavia and the Communist Party of Greece and in fact attempted to play the part of a Communist-led Macedonian national or popular front. After the organization was dissolved, most of the members ended up joining the Bulgarian Communist Party. During its existence, the organization had little influence over the Macedonian population. However such activists who came from the IMRO (United) maintained their strong pro-Bulgarian bias.''In conclusion, Gotse and IMRO were "children of the Exarchate", and the later ethnic Macedonia was mostly the creation of an young generation brought up from the end of the 20s of the 20th century in Belgrade or Zagreb, who had a different sensibility. The old IMRO people were not like that. It is not by chance that the distinguished historian Ivan Katardziev in an interview from the late 90s said that even one Dimitar Vlahov until the end of his life could not feel what it means to be an ethnic Macedonian, he remained with the old political Macedonianism of Gotse Delchev and Yane Sandanski, who is a very Bulgarian phenomenon.'' For more: Стефан Дечев: Дори македонските тълкувания за езика от Средновековието и 19 в. да са тенденциозни, защо да е невъзможно да се признае съществуването на стандартен македонски книжовен език
Marginalia, 17.12.2019.
/ref>

Bibliography

* VMRO (obedineta), vol. I, p. 131 Skopje 1991
* Andrew Rossos. The Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia: A British officer's report, 1944

References

Notes

External links

Makedonsko Delo
- VMRO-United newspaper.

{{Authority control

Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (United),
Macedonia, Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (United)
Modern history of Macedonia (region)
Defunct organizations based in Bulgaria
Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization
Regionalist parties