The Macedonian Secret Revolutionary Committee (MSRC; ; ) was founded in in

Plovdiv Plovdiv (, ) is the List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, second-largest city in Bulgaria, 144 km (93 miles) southeast of the capital Sofia. It had a population of 490,983 and 675,000 in the greater metropolitan area. Plovdiv is a cultural hub ...

. It was developed later in Geneva in a secret, anarchistic, brotherhood called "Geneva Group".

History

The Bulgarian

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...

movement grew in the 1890s, and the territory of

Principality of Bulgaria The Principality of Bulgaria () was a vassal state under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. It was established by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. After the Russo-Turkish War ended with a Russian victory, the Treaty of San Stefano was signed ...

became a staging-point for anarchist activities against the Ottomans. Its activists were the students Michail Gerdjikov, Petar Mandjukov, Petar Sokolov, Slavi Merdjanov, Dimitar Ganchev, Konstantin Antonov and others. In 1893, they started in Plovdiv revolutionary activity as founders of the MSRC, which was proclaimed there in 1895. At the end of 1897, part of the group moved to

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

(Lozana and Geneva), where it made close connections with the revolutionary immigration and founded in 1898 the so-called ''Geneva Group'', an external extension of MSRC. The organisation was under strong

influence and rejected the nationalisms of the ethnic minorities of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

, favouring the idea about a

Balkan Federation In late 19th and throughout the 20th century, the establishment of a Balkan Federation had been a recurrent suggestion of various political factions in the Balkans. The concept of a Balkan federation emerged in the late 19th century among left-w ...

. They proposed a "Macedonian state", which included also the Adrianople Vilajet (i.e. Macedonian-Thracian state) as part of the future Federation. They presumed that Bulgarian language, Bulgarian Church and Bulgarian education ought to be used there. However, the anarchists promoted the idea of the new state, for all the Macedonian "nationalities". Its members were to exert a significant influence on the development of the

Macedonian Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia. Macedonian(s) may refer to: People Modern * Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North Macedonia * Mac ...

and

Thracian The Thracians (; ; ) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Southeast Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied the area that today is shared between north-eastern Greece, ...

liberation movements. Between 1897 and 1898, two anarchist papers were published from Geneva - "Glas" and "Otmashtenie". In 1899, Gerdjikov came back to

Sofia Sofia is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain, in the western part of the country. The city is built west of the Is ...

and met

Gotse Delchev Georgi Nikolov Delchev (; ; 4 February 1872 – 4 May 1903), known as Gotse Delchev or Goce Delčev (''Гоце Делчев''),Originally spelled in older Bulgarian orthography as ''Гоце Дѣлчевъ''. - Гоце Дѣлчевъ. ...

. As a result, he and his comrades joined the Internal Macedonian Adrianople Revolutionary Organization and the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee. Slavi Merdjanov moved to the Bulgarian school in

Salonika Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

, where he worked as teacher and sparked some of the graduates with this ideas. They became later the so-called Gemidzii. The weakening of the Committee's center allowed some activists from the periphery of the movement, to attempt creating an alternative organization, which was however marginal. So on January 12, 1899, in Geneva on behalf of the self-proclaimed ''Macedonian Central Committee'', Georgi Kapchev sent a call to convene an International Congress, which aimed to solve the Macedonian issue and to implement a program for the necessary reforms, but his attempt failed.Централният македонски комитет на Георги Капчев (1898 - 1899), в: Елдъров, Светлозар. Върховният македоно-одрински комитет и македоно-одринската организация в България (1895 - 1903), Иврай, 2003, стр. 241 - 268.

Notes

Sources

Списание „Анамнеза”, 1996, брой 2
Анархизмът в македоно–одринското национално-революционно движение: Солунските атентатори, Мариан Гяурски. In English: Magazine "Anamnesis", 1996, Issue 2, The anarchism in Macedonian and Thracian national revolutionary movement: The Thessaloniki bombers, Marian Giaourski.

History

Notes

Sources

See also