In his youth Sandanski was interested in Bulgarian politics and had a career as head of the local prison in
Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organisation (IMARO). Sandanski became one of the leaders of the IMARO in the Serres revolutionary district and head of the left wing of the organisation. He supported the idea of a Balkan Federation, and Macedonia as an autonomous state within its framework, as an ultimate solution of the national problems in the area. During the Second Constitutional Era he became an Ottoman politician and entrepreneur, collaborating with the Young Turks and founded the Bulgarian People's Federative Party.[4] Sandanski took up arms on the side of Bulgaria during the Balkan Wars (1912–13). Finally he was involved in Bulgarian public life again, but was eventually killed by the rivalling IMARO right-wing faction activists.[5]
Sandanski's legacy remains disputed among Bulgarian and
However, contrary to Bulgarian assertions, his ideas of a separate Macedonian political entity, have stimulated the subsequent development of Macedonian nationalism.
As initial member of the SMAC, which served directly the Bulgarian governmental interests,
Greater Bulgarian
chauvinism” and the “Turkish yoke”.
Biography
Sandanski was born on 18 May 1872 in the village of
The failure of the Ilinden insurrection resulted in the eventual split of the IMARO into a left (federalist) faction in the Seres and Strumica districts and a right-wing faction (centralists) in the
Balkan Socialist Federation with equality for all subjects and nationalities. The centralist faction of IMARO, moved towards Bulgarian nationalism as its regions became incursed of Serb and Greek armed bands, which started infiltrating Macedonia after 1903. The years 1905–1907 saw the split between the two factions, when in 1907 Todor Panitsa killed the right-wing activists Boris Sarafov and Ivan Garvanov in order of Sandanski. The Kjustendil congress of the right faction of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) in 1908, sentenced Sandanski to death, and led to a final disintegration of the organization.Sandanski, Dimo Hadzhidimov, Todor Panitsa and other Federalists with Young Turks
After the
nationalities in the region, not only Bulgarians.[28]
In this way it would be possible to create a healthy system aimed at the organisation of a mass uprising.
wars, Pirin Macedonia was ceded in 1913 to Bulgaria and Sandanski resettled again in the Kingdom
where he was killed in 1915 by his political opponents.
The body of Yane Sandanski c. 1915
Controversy
The Macedonian liberation movement consisted of three major factions. Led by his excessive ambitions, Sandanski came into conflict with the majority — the Centralists in IMARO and the Varhovists. Although initially a member of the Bulgarian
political and did not imply a secession from Bulgarian ethnicity, even as it was seen at a later stage of the struggle by the group around Sandanski, that espoused a number of classical liberal ideas intermingled with socialism, imported from Bulgaria.[37][38][39]
On the other hand, the bigger fraction (the Centralists), as well as that of the other revolutionary organization -
Balkan Socialist Federation
and had not so extreme policy by their relation to Sofia. These political differences led to sharp conflict between them.
Arguably Sandanski's greatest sin in the context of the whole movement were the assassinations of the
Balkan wars
.
The manifesto proclaimed by Yane Sandanski at the beginning of the Young Turk Revolution. The socialist views of its real author Pavel Deliradev, who appealed to the Ottoman Bulgarians "not to fall prey to the propaganda that might be launched by the official authorities in Bulgaria against their joint struggle with the Turkish people”, won the sympathies of the “Young Turks”.[41]
There was, a long history of friction between the
collaborated later with the Young Turks, opposing other factions of IMARO, which fought against the Ottoman
authorities in this period.
The Gazette (Cedar Rapids)
on August 30, 1909.
During the first days of
Tsar Ferdinand I, but it failed. He and his wing officially supported then the Russophiles from the Democratic Party
.
The Centralists organised several unsuccessful assassination attempts against Sandanski. They came closest to achieving their goal in
Sandanski (II) with IMARO members supporting Bulgarian troops during Balkan Wars.Memoirs of Sandanski and other IMARO-activists, published in Sofia (1927).
While Sandanski's legacy remains disputed among Bulgarian and Macedonian historiography, there have been attempts among international scholars to reconcile his conflicting and controversial activity. According to the Turkish professor of history Mehmet Hacısalihoğlu, who is interested in nation-building in the late Ottoman Empire,
Macedonian Question by uniting all the Balkan peoples.[50]
In North Macedonia Sandanski is considered a national hero and one of the most prominent revolutionary figures of the 20th century. However, some Macedonian mainstream specialists on the history of local revolutionary movement, like Ivan Katardžiev and Zoran Todorovski, argued that the political separatism of Sandanski represented a form of early Macedonian nationalism,[51][need quotation to verify] asserting that at that time it was only a political phenomenon, without ethnic character.[52][non-primary source needed]Dimitrija Čupovski under the pseudonym Strezo writes that Sandanski was a Bulgarian agent, bodyguard of the Bulgarian prince and an ordinary criminal.[53][54]
Place of Sandanski's death, near the village of Pirin.
The IMRO right-wing publicist Stoyan Boyadziev has described Sandanski as extremely controversial Bulgarian revolutionary, whose separatist асtivitу however, produced as a whole Macedonian nationalism.
Fall of Communism some right-wing Bulgarian historians have been keen to discredit his reputation. Sandanski Point on the E coast of Ioannes Paulus II Peninsula, Livingston Island
, Antarctica was named after him by the Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition.
Notes
References
^Движението отсамъ Вардара и борбата съ върховиститѣ, съобщава Л. Милетичъ (Издава „Македонскиятъ Наученъ Институтъ", София - Печатница П. Глушковъ - 1927), стр. 11.
^"IMRO was founded in 1893 in Thessaloníki; its early leaders included Damyan Gruev, Gotsé Delchev, and Yane Sandanski, men who had a Macedonian regional identity and a Bulgarian national identity." For more see: Danforth, Loring. "Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization". Encyclopædia Britannica.
^Waller, Diane, "Mercia MacDermott: A Woman of the Frontier" p. 181; in Black Lambs and Grey Falcons (2nd ed.). Allcock, John B. and Young, Antonia, eds. (2000). Oxford: Berghahn Books. pp. 166–186.
^As an organ of the Bulgarian People's Federative Party, Narodna Volya defends and expresses the interests mainly of that part of the Bulgarian population, which comprises its predominant majority, and which is the most important element in that party-the petty owners deprived of all state protection, the landless or poor farmers, petty shopkeepers, craftsmen and merchants. These are the social strata whose interests today are the interests of the Bulgarian nationality in the Empire. We consider that these interests require, in the first place, the strengthening of the constitutional regime, the expansion of liberties and the extension of reforms in the administrative and economic system. Only in this way can we create conditions for the raising of the standard of living and the prosperity of the Bulgarians in the Empire. Excerpt from a leading article entitled 'Our Positions' in the newspaper Narodna Volya, explains the demands of the Bulgarian People's Federative Party; Newspaper Narodna Volya, Soloun, No. 1, Jan. 17th, 1909; the original is in Bulgarian. /The newspaper Narodna Volya subtitled 'Organ of the Bulgarian People's Federal Party,' was the organ of the left faction in the Macedonian-Adrianople movement at the time of the Hürriyet, prepared the ground ideologically for the founding of the People's Federative Party, the Bulgarian section of which was set up at the Congress in August 1909./ Macedonia: Documents and Materials. Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1978.
^If this attitude were not peculiar and different in comparison with their attitude towards the other nationalities in the Empire, we would undoubtedly not even mention the name of the Bulgarian nationality to which we belong. Our basic principle is to struggle for the rights and liberties of all nationalities, without exception, and we strive for the complete equality of all the subjects of the Ottoman Empire, irrespective of nationality and religion. From this standpoint, we shall not hesitate, in the least, to come out in defence of any nationality, provided we are convinced that it is being discriminated against and is below the existing level of liberty and justice enjoyed by all other nationalities. We shall not hesitate either to turn against our own nationality, if it were given some advantages and privileges to the disadvantage of the other nationalities and if its privileged position compromised the regime of universal political and civil equality in the country. A newspaper article in Konstitoutsionna Zarya entitled 'The Peculiar Attitude of the Government towards the Bulgarian Nationality'. November 26th, 1908; the original is in Bulgarian. /A newspaper expressed the views of the left faction in the organization - the group of Yane Sandanski, after the Young Turk Revolution. At the beginning of 1909 it merged with the newspaper Edinstvo, and continued to appear under the name Narodna Volya./ Macedonia: Documents and Materials. Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1978.
^On no account must the population be deceived into hoping for outside help. It must rely on its own forces, and the Organization’s centre of gravity must be shifted from the cheti to the mass of the people, with the cheti acting chiefly as instructors and inspectors. All those who are ‘discontented with the existing regime’ must be brought into the Organization, and this must be understood as meaning not only Bulgarians, but all the nationalities inhabiting the Organization’s territory. Balkan Federation is indicated as an ultimate solution of the national problem, as ‘the sole way for the salvation of all’. See: Pavel Deliradev, Razvitieto na federativnata ideya, Makedonska misal, Book 5-6, 1946, pp. 203-208; also "For freedom and perfection. The Life of Yané Sandansky", Mercia MacDermott, Journeyman, London, 1988, pp. 152-153.
is quoted from a hand-written leaflet, bearing the seal of the Razlog Committee for Union and Progress, and a price, i.e. the leaflet was one of many copies made for sale. The leaflet was found among the papers of Lazar Kolchagov of Bansko, and was published by Ivan Diviziev in Istoricheski Pregled, 1964, Book 4 (Nov Dokument za Yané Sandansky).
^"Long ago you are regarding our Macedonian-Adrianopole question only as Bulgarian question. The struggle we are on, you consider as the struggle for triumph of the Bulgarian nationality over the others which are living with us. Let forget henceforth who is Bulgarian, who is Greek, who is Serbian, who is Vlah, but remember who is underprivileged slave." - A letter to the Greek citizens of Melnik, (Революционен лист (Revolutionary Sheet), № 3, 17.09.1904)
^Ј. Богатинов - "Спомени", бр.11 од в. "Доброволец", 1945 г.
^According to Todor Romov, Jane Sandanski’s follower from the village of Rozhen, Pirin Macedonia, Sandanski said: “Bulgaria wants to conquer us, to absorb us. They don’t wanna help us. Remember! Even the Ottoman-Turkish regime was better than the eventual Bulgarian one, because during the Turkish regime, at least we had an idea to fight for, on the other hand – Bulgarians would eat us.“ (Стойко Стойков. Табy: Време на страх и страдание - Преследването на Македонците в България по времето на комунизма (1944-1989) - Сборник спомени и документи, pg. 331, Изд.: Дружество на репресираните Македонците в България, Благоевград, 2014 г.)
^ The leaders of the VMK were Bulgarian officers, Macedonian-born or descended, who were close to Bulgarian Prince Ferdinand of Coburg (ruled 1887 – 1918) and the willing tools of his self-exalting adventures. Though they repeatedly urged a speedy uprising, they had little faith in the strength of the internal movement, nor were they sensitive to the danger of Macedonia's partition, a threat that caused the BMORK to fight for Macedonia's autonomy within the Turkish state in the first place, rather than for her incorporation within Bulgaria... Autonomy, in other words, was as good as independence. Moreover, from the Macedonian perspective, the goal of independence by autonomy had another advantage. Gotse Delchev (1872 – 1903) and the other leaders of the BMORK were aware of Serbian and Greek ambitions in Macedonia. More important, they were aware that neither Belgrade nor Athens could expect to obtain the whole of Macedonia and, unlike Bulgaria, looked forward to and urged partition of this land. Autonomy, then, was the best prophylactic against partition – a prophylactic that would preserve the Bulgarian character of Macedonia's Christian population despite the separation from Bulgaria proper...The revived Internal Organization was increasingly under the influence of the VMK, though a left wing, associated with the Serres guerrilla group of Jane Sandanski, kept alive the autonomist tradition of Delchev, who had fallen to a Turkish ambush in 1903... "The National Question in Yugoslavia. Origins, History, Politics", by Ivo Banac, Cornell University Press, 1984, pp. 314-317.
^Psilos, Christopher (2000) The Young Turk revolution and the Macedonian question 1908-1912, University of Leeds. Chapter 5.7 The Serres Faction and the Creation of the Bulgarian National Federal Party (B.N.F.P.) pp. 98 - 103..
^We went back. We told Yané what had happened, and he was silent as though struck dumb. He was silent, and sighed; only at one time he said: "We’re all Bulgarians, Tatso, and yet we kill each other to no useful purpose whatsoever. This futile bloodshed weighs heavy upon me. . . What do you think?" ‘What could I say to him? I was a simple chetnik. I’m telling you, those were troubled times, and there was plenty of unnecessary bloodshed. . . As for Yané, bright soul, he grieved over everything. As cited by Mercia MacDermott, For Freedom and Perfection. The Life of Yane Sandansky, p. 187 from the memoirs of Atanas Yanev, Eho, No. 21 (590), 26.V.1972.‘. . . It was somewhere around 1905-1906. At that time, the Supremists—Ferdinand’s generals, as we called them—appeared in our part of the country as well. And they managed to get a foothold in the village of Lyubovka. "We are not going to stand for this," Yané decided, and collected a group of us. "Go and wake up Lyubovka! See to it that there’s no bloodshed!" (The words are quoted in the memoirs of his adherent Atanas Yanev and published in "Eho" newspaper, 26.05.1972) as cited by Mercia MacDermott, For Freedom and Perfection. The Life of Yane Sandanskyp. 186.
^When, at the People Federative Party Congress, some more extreme left-winger began to attack the Exarchate during a debate on education, Yané, who was chairing the session, rose to his feet and said: ‘Leave the Exarchate alone! The situation in Turkey is still fluid.’ There was a great commotion, and Yané adjourned the session. During the interval, he went over to the delegate who had attacked the Exarchate and said: ‘You know nothing! If it should so happen that the Bulgarians in Macedonia don’t get what they want, I shall defend the Exarchate with a weapon in my hand.(Dnevnik, 11.VIII.1909. The debate in question took place on 7.VIII.1909.)
^Sandanski called his compatriots to discard the propaganda of official Bulgaria in order to live together in a peaceful way with the Turkish people.(Adanır, Ibid., 258.)
^See abstract from the book "For freedom and perfection: the life of Yané Sandansky".
^Ivan Katardžiev, Makedonija sto godini po Ilindenskoto vostanie, Skopje: Kultura, 2003, 54-69
^Трибуна:Новинарот Виктор Цветаноски обидувајќи се во „Утрински весник” да спротивстави бугарска (Тодор Александров) и македонска кауза, вели: „Сандански ја застапувал тезата дека треба да се работи меѓу македонскиот народ и на теренот да му се објаснува дека тој е посебен народ...”?Тодоровски:Никаде Сандански нема таква изјава. Тој имал исти погледи и ставови како и другите македонски дејци од левицата и десницата, и тој се сметал за Бугарин. За него има малку документација, има повеќе другите што пишуват за него. И она малку што го напишал, кога кажува за населението во Македонија, никаде не спомнува македонски народ како посебен етнос, туку дека: „Во Македонија живеат Бугари, Турци, Албанци...”
For more: "Уште робуваме на старите поделби", Разговор со д-р Зоран Тодоровски, here (in Macedonian; in English: "We are still in servitude to the old divisions", interview with Ph. D. Zoran Todorovski, published on http://www.tribune.eu.com, 27. 06. 2005.
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