Mencha Karnicheva
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Melpomena Dimitrova Karnicheva or Krničeva (Bulgarian: Мелпомена Димитрова Кърничева; Macedonian: Мелпомена Димитрова Крничева 16 March 1900 – 1964),[1] popularly known as Mencha (Менча), was a Bulgarophile Aromanian revolutionary and terrorist[2] of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO).[3] The wife of IMRO leader Ivan Mihailov, she is known for assassinating IMRO left-wing activist Todor Panitsa.
Karnicheva was born in
Karnicheva joined the female Macedonian movement in Bulgaria and was part of Todor Panitsa's circle. She gradually got to be disappointed by his leftist views that advocated
On 8 May 1925, Karnicheva assassinated Panitsa in Vienna's Burgtheater.[7] The assassination was widely publicized across Europe. Mencha was arrested; her first words after the assassination were "He was a bad Macedonian". After a trial, Mencha was sentenced to eight years in prison, a minimum sentence by Austrian law that took her worsening health in consideration. Austria's Supreme Court declared her incapable of serving that sentence due to tuberculosis, kidney problems and rheumatism that she had suffered from since childhood; in late 1925, she was released and expelled from Austria.
Following her acquittal in court in Yugoslavia over her involvement in the IMRO, on 25 December 1926 Karnicheva returned to Bulgaria and married IMRO leader Ivan (Vanche) Mihailov,[8] with whom she lived in exile in Turkey, Poland and Hungary after 1934. In May 1941 they settled in Zagreb, capital of the Nazi Germany puppet Independent State of Croatia; in 1944,[9] they briefly lived in German-occupied Skopje. From 1945 to her death in 1964, she lived with Mihailov in Rome, Italy.
References
- ^ "МАКЕДОНИЯ: ИСТОРИЯ И НОВИНИ ОТ МНИ / MACEDONIA: HISTORY AND NEWS FROM MSI: MEHЧA KЪPHИЧEBA - "ЗАЩО УБИХ ТОДОР ПАНИЦА ?". 2009-01-01. Archived from the original on 2009-01-01. Retrieved 2017-10-22.
- ISBN 978-1443878456.
- ISBN 954-509-239-4.
- ^ Pohanka, Reinhard (2001). Attentate in Österreich. p. 121.
- ^ Mikhailov, Ivan (1967). Memories III. Liberation Struggle 1924 - 1934. Leuven: Leuven. p. 175.
- ^ "Article Record".
- ISBN 9780199237685.
- ISBN 9780198858324.
- ISBN 9780359995455.
- "Mencha Karnicheva — Why did I kill Todor Panitsa?" (in Bulgarian). Macedonia Science. 2007-05-03. Archived from the original on January 1, 2009. Retrieved 2009-01-30.