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{{Short description|Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary (1872–1915)}}
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[[Image:Jane Sandanski.jpg|thumb|150px|right|Yane Sandanski]]
{{Use British English|date=December 2024}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2024}}
{{Infobox Soldier
| honorific_prefix = Voivode
| name = Yane Sandanski
⚫
| native_name = Яне Сандански
| image = File:Yane Sandanski.jpg
| caption = Yane Sandanski {{circa|1900}}
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1872|05|18|df=y}}
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1915|04|22|1872|05|18|df=y}}
| birth_place = [[Vlahi (village)|Vlahi]], [[Ottoman Empire]]
| death_place = Blatata, near [[Pirin (Bulgarian village)|Pirin]], [[Tsardom of Bulgaria]]
| placeofburial = [[Rozhen Monastery]]
| birth_name = Yane Ivanov Sandanski
| allegiance = * {{flagicon image|Gorna Dzhumaya rebellion 1895 flag.jpg}} [[Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee|SMAC]]
* {{flagicon image|Flag of the IMRO.svg}} [[Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization|IMRO]]
* {{flagicon|Bulgaria|1878}} [[Tsardom of Bulgaria]]
| branch = [[File:Bulgaria war flag.png|20px]] [[Bulgarian Army]]
| battles = [[Ilinden Uprising]]<br>[[Macedonian Struggle]]<br>[[Balkan Wars]]
*[[First Balkan War]]
*[[Second Balkan War]]
| signature = File:Yane Sandanski Signature (vectorized).svg
}}
'''Yane Ivanov Sandanski''' ({{Langx|bg|Яне Иванов Сандански}}, {{Langx|mk|Јане Иванов Сандански|Jane Ivanov Sandanski}};<ref>{{cite book |editor1=John Neubauer |editor2=Marcel Cornis-Pope |title=History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Centuries |date=2004 |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Company |isbn=9789027234537 |pages=358, 506}}</ref> Originally spelled in [[Reforms of Bulgarian orthography|older Bulgarian orthography]] as {{Lang|bg|Яне Ивановъ Сандански}} (Yane Ivanov Sandanski);<ref>Движението отсамъ Вардара и борбата съ върховиститѣ, съобщава Л. Милетичъ (Издава „Македонскиятъ Наученъ Институтъ", София - Печатница П. Глушковъ - 1927), стр. 11.</ref> 18 May 1872 – 22 April 1915) was a [[Macedonian Bulgarians|Macedonian Bulgarian]] revolutionary and leader of the left-wing of the [[Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization|Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organisation]] (IMARO).<ref>{{cite web |quote=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. |author=Loring Danforth |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Internal-Macedonian-Revolutionary-Organization |title=Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization |website=Encyclopædia Britannica}}</ref>


In his youth Sandanski was involved in the anti-Ottoman struggle, joining initially the [[Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee]] (SMAC), but later switched to IMARO. As an activist of the [[Liberal Party (Radoslavists)]], he became the head of the local prison in [[Dupnitsa]]. After the Ilinden uprising, Sandanski became the leader of the [[Serres revolutionary district]]. He supported the idea of a [[Balkan Federation]], and [[Macedonia (region)|Macedonia]] as [[Autonomy for Macedonia and Adrianople regions|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, collaborating with the [[Young Turks]] and founding the [[People's Federative Party (Bulgarian Section)|Bulgarian People's Federative Party]].<ref>{{cite book |quote=The other prominent member of the [[Socialist Workers' Federation]], besides the Sephardic Circle and the “anarcho-liberals,” was the People’s Federative Party–Bulgarian Section. The latter was founded in April 1909 by IMRO members who actively participated in the Young Turk Revolution and the “Army of Freedom” march on Istanbul to quell the countercoup in 1909. It was strongly divided along ideological lines and different strategic choices around social democrats like Dimitîr Vlahov (1878–1953), nationalists with socialist leanings like Iane Sandanski (1872–1915), and nationalists like Khristo Chernopeev. |author=Maria Todorova |date=2020 |title=The Lost World of Socialists at Europe’s Margins: Imagining Utopia, 1870s - 1920s |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |page=64 |isbn=1350150347}}</ref> Sandanski took up arms on the side of Bulgaria during the [[Balkan Wars]] (1912–13). Afterwards, he became involved in Bulgarian public life again but was assassinated by the rivalling IMARO right-wing faction activists.
'''Yane Ivanov Sandanski''' or '''Jane Ivanov Sandanski''' ([[May 18]], [[1872]], [[Vlahi]], present day [[Bulgaria]] - [[April 22]], [[1915]] near [[Melnik, Bulgaria]]) was a [[Bulgarians|Bulgarian]] revolutionary from [[Macedonia (region)|Macedonia]], one of the leaders of the BMARC since 1895 (SMARO from 1902 and [[IMRO]] from 1906). He is considered an [[Macedonians (ethnic group)|ethnic Macedonian]] in the [[Republic of Macedonia]], a view supported to an extent in [[Serbia]].


He is recognised as a national hero in both [[Bulgaria]] and [[North Macedonia]],<ref>{{cite book |quote=The way Bulgarian and Macedonian history and identities are intertwined is exemplified by the dispute over the identity of revolutionary heroes such as Gotse Delchev and Yane Sandanski. Bulgarian nationalists, for example, ridicule their Macedonian counterparts' identification with Sandanski, since archival documents refer to him as Bulgarian. |author=Vemund Aarbakke |chapter=Images of imperial legacy: The impact of nationalizing discourse on the image of the last years of Ottoman rule in Macedonia |page=121 |title=Images of Imperial Legacy, Modern Discourses on the social and cultural impact of Ottoman and Habsburg rule in Southeast Europe |editor1=Tea Sindbæk |editor2=Maxmilian Hartmuth |isbn=3643108508 |date=2011 |publisher=LIT Verlag Münster}}</ref> but his identity is also disputed between both countries. While [[People's Republic of Bulgaria]] honoured him,<ref>{{cite book |author1=Frederick F. Anscombe |title=State, Faith, and Nation in Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Lands |date=2014 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9781107729674 |page=153}}</ref> after the [[Revolutions of 1989|fall of communism]] he has been described by Bulgarian nationalist historians as a betrayer of the Bulgarian national interests and collaborator with the Turks. On the contrary, in North Macedonia, the positive connotation of him, created in the times of [[Communist Yugoslavia]] is still alive, and he has been portrayed there as a fighter against the "Bulgarian aspirations in Macedonia" and the "Turkish yoke."
Yane Sandanski was born in the village of Vlahi near [[Melnik, Bulgaria|Melnik]] (present-day [[Bulgaria]]) on [[May 28]] [[1872]]. His father Ivan participated as a flag carrier in the well known [[Kresna Uprising]]. After the crush of the uprising, in 1879 his family moved to [[Dupnitsa]], [[Bulgaria]], where Sandanski received his elementary education. Until 1895 Sandanski was a Bulgarian state employee.


== Life ==
Yane Sandanski was a prominent revolutionary, and one of the leaders of the Revolutionary Movement in Macedonia and [[Thrace]]. Since the start of his revolutionary activity, he became well known because he protected the villagers from the tyranny of the Ottomans. He organised courts and taught self-defence.
===Early life and activity===
Sandanski lived and fought in the [[Pirin]] region, and that is why the people gave him the name "Pirin Tsar" (Pirinski Tsar). He was also active in the [[Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising]], and in 1908 when he supported the movement of [[Young Turks]]. He was one of the leaders of the one of the political parties in Macedonia in 1909-1910 - [[Bulgarian People Federative Party|People Federative Party (Bulgarian section)]] which headquarter was in [[Solun]]. His dream was creating a Balkan Federation, and Macedonian State as a part ot that Federation.
[[File:Sandanski v bg armia.jpg|180px|thumb|Yane Sandanski in the [[Bulgarian Army]] {{circa|1892}}]]
Sandanski was born on 18 May 1872 in the village of [[Vlahi (village)|Vlahi]] near [[Kresna]], then in the [[Ottoman Empire]], now in Bulgaria.<ref name="bio">{{cite book |editor1=Wojciech Roszkowski |editor2=Jan Kofman |title=Biographical Dictionary of Central and Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century |date=2008 |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |isbn=9780765610270 |pages=882-883}}</ref> He was the third and last child of Ivan and Milka, after Todor and Sofia. His father Ivan participated in the [[Kresna-Razlog Uprising]] as a [[standard-bearer]] in a rebel detachment. In 1879, after the suppression of the uprising, his family moved to [[Dupnitsa]], in the recently established [[Principality of Bulgaria]], where Sandanski received his elementary education. He had to drop out of school after completing two years of post-elementary education due to poverty and became the apprentice of a shoemaker. From 1892 to 1894 he was subject to compulsory military service in the [[Bulgarian army]], as part of the Thirteenth Regiment which was stationed in Kyustendil, and he was demobilized with the rank of corporal.<ref name="mm">{{cite book |author=Mercia MacDermott |author-link=Mercia MacDermott |title=For Freedom and Perfection: The Life of Yané Sandansky |date=1988 |publisher=Journeyman Press |location=London |isbn=978-1-85172-014-9 |pages=1-3, 23, 42, 29-32, 67, 74, 83, 164-166, 241, 349-350, 466, 478}}</ref> He joined initially the [[Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee]] (SMAC) in 1895 during the [[Supreme Macedonian Committee chetas' action|Committee's cheta action]] into the [[Tamrash Republic|Pomaks-inhabited regions]] of the Western [[Rhodopes]].<ref name="db">{{cite book |author=Dimitar Bechev |title=Historical Dictionary of North Macedonia |edition=2nd |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |date=2019 |isbn=1538119625 |pages=60, 113, 261-263}}</ref> In 1897 in Dupnitsa, a new detachment of the Supreme Committee was formed, under the leadership of Krastyo Zahariev, where Sandanski joined too. After the detachment entered Pirin Mountains, it encountered Ottoman troops. In one of the battles Sandanski was wounded and his detachment returned him to Bulgaria for treatment.<ref name="mm" /> Sandanski operated as an activist of [[Liberal Party (Radoslavists)|Radoslavov's wing of the Liberal Party]] and shortly after it came to power in February 1899, he was appointed head of the Dupnitsa prison.<ref>Деметра Андонова, интервю с д-р Георги Георгиев: Яне Сандански заслужава паметен знак в Дупница, но обществото ни не е готово за този дебат. [https://kamerton.news/content/content/details/1302/lang/1 18.05.2019 г. Kamerton.]</ref> He switched to the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (IMRO) in 1901. He built the organisation's network of committees in the districts of Serres and Gorna Dzhumaya.<ref name="db" /> Due to the organisation's bad financial situation, he had to ponder different ways to earn money.<ref name="mm" /> He settled on kidnapping an American Protestant missionary for ransom. On 3 September 1901, a Protestant missionary named Ellen Stone along with her companions set out on horseback across the mountainous hinterlands of Macedonia and were ambushed by his detachment led by him and his friend [[Hristo Chernopeev]]. She was kidnapped along with her Bulgarian companion Katerina Tsilka.<ref name="mm" /> It resulted in the [[Miss Stone Affair]] - America's first modern hostage crisis. SMAC attempted to acquire both women but the attempt was foiled by Sandanski.<ref name="rd">{{cite book |author=Raymond Detrez |title=The A to Z of Bulgaria |date=2010 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |isbn=9780810872028 |pages=390-391, 423 |edition=2nd}}</ref> The affair ended after the organisation received the ransom money (which was used to purchase weapons) and the women were released.<ref name="bio" /><ref name="nla">{{cite book |author=Nadine Lange-Akhund |title=The Macedonian Question, 1893-1908, from Western Sources |date=1998 |publisher=East European Monographs |isbn=9780880333832 |pages=96-97, 234-238, 253, 263-264}}</ref>


===Activity in IMARO===
With the fall of the [[Ottoman Empire]] [[Macedonia (region)|Macedonia]] was partitioned between [[Serbia]], [[Bulgaria]] and [[Greece]]. Sandanski supported the Bulgarian army in the [[Balkan wars]] of 1912-1913.
In 1902, Sandanski persuaded the [[Vlachs]] in the [[Sanjak of Siroz|sanjak of Serres]] from Melnik, mostly shepherds, to join his Serres committee, in exchange for his protection against soldiers and detachments.<ref name="nla" /> He came to be known as the "Tsar of Pirin."<ref>{{cite book |author=Keith Brown |title=The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation |date=2003 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=9780691099958 |page=270}}</ref> Sandanski was opposed to the [[Ilinden uprising]], considering it premature, although he did participate in the military actions in the region of Serres.<ref name="rd" /> The failure of the Ilinden uprising resulted in the split of the IMRO into a left-wing (federalist) faction in the Serres and Strumica districts and a right-wing (centralist) faction in the [[Bitola]] and [[Skopje]] districts. The left-wing faction advocated the creation of a [[Balkan Federation]] (including Macedonia) with equality for all subjects and nationalities, as well as favouring the decentralisation of IMRO. The right-wing faction of IMRO aimed for the unification of Macedonia with Bulgaria and advocated for centralisation to counter the incursions of Serb and Greek bands into Macedonia.<ref name="db" /><ref name="mh">{{cite journal |author=Mehmet Hacısalihoğlu |title=Yane Sandanski as a political leader in Macedonia in the era of the Young Turks |journal=Cahiers balkaniques |date=2012 |pages=1-14 |doi=10.4000/ceb.1192 |url=https://journals.openedition.org/ceb/1192 |issn=0290-7402}}</ref> Per Bulgarian historian and former IMARO member [[Hristo Silyanov]], Sandanski's faction sentenced [[Boris Sarafov]] to death in 1904.<ref name="mm" /> Sandanski created observation posts in his district order to watch for Turkish detachments, and the peasants were forced to warn or be killed. He also organised military training for all able men. Several people in his district were executed as collaborators. French consul Guillois described Sandanski as "a ferocious man, bloodthirsty...who enjoys an absolute authority over all Bulgarian villages to the northeast of Salonika."<ref name="nla" /> Sandanski justified the executions in an open letter to him and argued that the organisation had the right to ignore the law of the land and to punish as it saw fit.<ref name="mm" />


In 1905, the Rila Congress of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation adopted the main ideas of the left-wing faction led by Sandanski. The organisation changed its name to IMARO (Internal Macedono-Adrianopolitan Revolutionary Organisation) and allowed membership for people from European Turkey independently of sex, religion, nationality and conviction.<ref name="dm">{{cite book |title=We, the People. Politics of National Peculiarity in Southeastern Europe |editor=Diana Mishkova |publisher=Central European University Press |date=2009 |isbn=9639776289 |page=125-126, 129-130}}</ref> At the end of the congress, Sandanski confronted Sarafov, accusing him of having accepted money from the Serbs, having facilitated the transit of Serbian detachments into Macedonia and organising his own armed groups in order to weaken the organisation and take the leadership. In turn, Sarafov accused him of being a traitor due to his refusal to participate in the battles of the Ilinden uprising. However, the congress ended with the delegates deciding not to examine the cases of the leaders who could have violated the rules in order to preserve the organisation's unity. In 1906, his faction controlled Serres and Strumica and for geographical reasons, it rarely fought against Serbs or Greeks but often against Ottoman troops. Mihail Daev, who was a member of his committee, sent a letter to the right-wing faction in September 1907, where he asserted that as long as Sandanski was alive, there was no question of uniting the organisation again. The letter was discovered by [[Todor Panitsa]], an associate of Sandanski and on 10 October, the Serres committee sentenced Boris Sarafov, Ivan Garvanov and Mihail Daev to death.<ref name="nla" /> Panitsa assassinated Sarafov and Garvanov in the same year. After their assassination, Bulgarian authorities issued an arrest warrant against Sandanski.<ref name="igd">{{cite book |author=Igor Despot |title=The Balkan Wars in the Eyes of the Warring Parties: Perceptions and Interpretations |publisher=iUniverse |date=2012 |isbn=1475947038 |pages=15, 27, 66}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=M. Şükrü Hanioğlu |title=Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902-1908 |date=2001 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780195134636 |page=244}}</ref> The [[Kyustendil]] congress of the right-wing faction of IMARO in 1908, sentenced him to death, which led to a final disintegration of the organisation.<ref name="dl">{{cite book |author=Denis Š. Ljuljanović |title=Imagining Macedonia in the Age of Empire: State Policies, Networks and Violence (1878–1912) |date=2023 |publisher=LIT Verlag Münster |isbn=9783643914460 |pages=219-221}}</ref>
Sandanski was killed near the [[Rozhen Monastery]] on [[April 22]] [[1915]], while travelling from [[Melnik, Bulgaria|Melnik]] to [[Nevrokop]], by local IMARO band from Nevrokop's region.


=== Collaboration with the Young Turks ===
Yane Sandanski is mentioned in the [[National Anthem]] of the [[Republic of Macedonia]] as one of the greatest Macedonian heroes whose idea was creating independent Macedonian State. He is paid tribute to every year by the members of [[UMO Ilinden-Pirin]], an ethnic Macedonian political party in Bulgaria, in the Rozhen Monastery.
[[File:Sandanski, Dimo Hadzhi Dimov, Todor Panitsa with Young Turks.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Sandanski, [[Dimo Hadzhidimov]], [[Todor Panitsa]] and other ''Federalists'' with [[Young Turks]]]]
[[File:Jane Sandanski Manifest 1908.jpg|right|200px|thumb|The manifesto proclaimed by Sandanski at the beginning of the [[Young Turk Revolution]]. The socialist views of its 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.<ref>{{cite book |editor=Roumyana Preshelova |title=Cities in the Balkans: Spaces, Faces, Memories |location=Sofia |publisher=IBSCT-BAS |date=2021 |isbn=978-619-7179-20-0 |page=139}}</ref>]]
Sandanski and his faction decided to work with the [[Young Turks]] in 1907.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Christopher Psilos |title=From Cooperation to Alienation: An Insight into Relations between the Serres Group and the Young Turks during the Years 1906–9 |journal=European History Quarterly |date=2005 |volume=35 |issue=4 |page=546 |doi=10.1177/0265691405056877}}</ref> During the first days of [[Young Turk Revolution]], the collaboration of the Macedonian leftists with the Ottoman activists was stated in a special ''Manifesto to all the nationalities of the Empire''. Sandanski called his compatriots to discard the "propaganda" of official Bulgaria in order to live together in a peaceful way with the [[Turkish people]]. The manifesto was authored by Bulgarian socialist Pavel Deliradev but signed by Sandanski.<ref name="mm" /> The loyalty to the Empire declared by Sandanski deliberately blurred the distinction between Macedonian and Ottoman political agenda.<ref name="dm" /> Among the Ottoman public, Sandanski was known as "King of the Mountains" and "Sandan Pasha". After the revolution, Sandanski and Chernopeev worked towards creating a left-wing political party called [[People's Federative Party (Bulgarian Section)|People's Federative Party]], whose headquarters were in [[Thessaloniki]] (Salonica).<ref name="dl" /> This federalist project was supposed to include different ethnic sections in itself, but this idea failed and the only section that was created was the faction of Sandanski, called ''Bulgarian section''. In this way its activists only "revived" their Bulgarian national identification, as Sandanski's faction advocated the particular interests of the "Bulgarian nationality" in the Empire.<ref name="dm" /><ref>{{cite book |title=Entangled Histories of the Balkans: Volume One |author1=Roumen Daskalov |author2=Tchavdar Marinov |publisher=BRILL |date=2013 |isbn=900425076X |page=303}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Македонизмът и съпротивата на Македония срещу него |author=Коста Църнушанов |publisher=Унив. изд. "Св. Климент Охридски" |date=1992 |url=http://www.promacedonia.org/kc/cyrn13_b.html |page=101}}</ref> In 12 April 1909, a counter-revolution took place in Istanbul and conservative Muslim forces were able to gain control. The Young Turks gathered their forces in Salonica and marched upon the capital. A detachment of 1,200 IMARO revolutionaries took part under the command of him, Todor Panitsa, and Hristo Chernopeev.<ref>Bojinov, V. (2012). Bulgaria and the Young Turk Revolution (June 1908 – April 1909): The Beginning of the End of Ottoman Empire. Adam Academy Journal of Social Sciences, 2 (1). pp. 81-90.</ref> The capital was captured by the Young Turks. [[Abdul Hamid II]] was deposed from the throne.<ref name="va">{{cite book |author=Vemund Aarbakke |title=Ethnic Rivalry and the Quest for Macedonia, 1870-1913 |date=2003 |publisher=East European Monographs |isbn=9780880335270 |pages=148-151}}</ref>


Through his good relations with the [[Committee of Union and Progress]] (CUP), Sandanski contributed to the appointment of local administrators and the affairs of school education. At the beginning of 1910, however Chernopeev, who was the leader of the leftist group in Strumica, left politics and moved to Sofia. There, he founded a new illegal organization, the Bulgarian National Macedonian Adrianople Revolutionary Organization. Chernopeev also invited him to join him, however Sandanski ignored his invitation. The Bulgarian press launched a propaganda campaign against Sandanski. Sandanski was accused of betraying the Bulgarians in Macedonia, since he did not launch an armed resistance against the Ottoman government. The socialist groups in Bulgaria also criticised Sandanski as a collaborator of the Turks. Despite the pressure and critiques, Sandanski continued with his legitimate political activity. The CUP also wanted to carry out the disarmament of the population in the region dominated by Sandanski. Sandanski rejected the attempt, resulting in tension between him and the CUP. In the process of negotiations, Sandanski ensured the CUP that in his region he was responsible for all illegal actions and that it was unnecessary to disarm the population. The CUP accepted his proposition and halted the disarmament of the Christian population in the area.<ref name="mh" /> The rivaling faction's activists of IMARO organised several unsuccessful assassination attempts against Sandanski at that time. They came closest to achieving their goal in Thessaloniki, where [[Tane Nikolov]] managed to kill two of his comrades and heavily wounded Sandanski.
==Famous Quotes==


=== Balkan Wars and aftermath ===
* The Macedonian revolutionaries, which after long and cruel fight with the Turkish tyrants lived to see their dream - freedom of their Fatherland, cannot allow her to fall under Serb and Greek rule again: they will not be afraid to resort to even the most fearsome terrorist means to realize their sacred dream - liberated Bulgarian Macedonia. (interview for Italian newspaper Sekulo, Tirana, 1912)
Sandanski was at the service of the Bulgarian army during the [[Balkan Wars]].<ref name="db" /> During the [[First Balkan War]], the area that Sandanski controlled was occupied by Bulgarian forces. Sandanski helped the occupying armies with his guerillas. The Macedonian Bulgarian detachments burned Muslim villages and massacred Muslims and within his region, they were treated in the same manner. The Muslim men and women of the village Petrovo were burnt to death and only the children were left alive. Per MacDermott, Sandanski was not aware about the incident. He usually tried to prevent such massacres on the Muslims. When he learned about this massacre in Petrovo, he gave the children of killed Muslims to the Bulgarian villagers.<ref name="mh" /> Sandanski had a unit under his control which fought together with the Bulgarians, but under independent command. It was located at the right flank of the [[7th Rila Infantry Division|Seventh Rila Division]], numbered 2,000 men and was also the unit that captured Melnik.<ref name="igd" /> Later, Sandanski and his comrades were included in the [[Macedonian-Adrianopolitan Volunteer Corps]] and were active in the [[Adrianople |Adrianople region]]. In June 1913, the Bulgarian government sent a delegation headed by Sandanski to Albania for negotiations with the [[Provisional Government of Albania|provisional Albanian government]] for joint action in the event of a war with Serbia and Greece. He gave an interview for the Italian newspaper "''Il Secolo''" in [[Tirana]], where he said that he came to an agreement with the Albanians and that revolutionary activity would be renewed.<ref>{{cite book |url=http://www.promacedonia.org/dg/dgoc_4.htm |title=Идеята за автономия като тактика в програмите на национално-освободителното движение в Македония и Одринско (1893-1941) |author=Dimitŭr Got︠s︡ev |publisher=Изд. на БАН |date=1983 |pages=40-41 |language=bg}}</ref>


After the wars, most of Macedonia was ceded to Greece and Serbia, while [[Pirin Macedonia]] was ceded to Bulgaria and Sandanski resettled in the [[Kingdom of Bulgaria|Kingdom]]. On July 1914, the Bulgarian assembly pardoned him for all offences.<ref name="mm" /> In the same year, Macedonian nationalist [[Dimitrija Čupovski]] under the [[pseudonym]] Strezo wrote that Sandanski was a Bulgarian agent, bodyguard of the Bulgarian prince and an ordinary criminal.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Dimitar|first=Chupovski|date=1914|title=Dimitar Chupovski from the village of Papradishte, Veles region, Vardar Macedonia - "The case of J. Sandanski - not a Macedonian case", published in the newspaper "Makedonskij Golos", year II, issue. 11, Petrograd, Russia, November 20, 1914|url=http://www.strumski.com/books/Dimityr_Chupovski_za_Jane_Sandanski.pdf|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210513091608/https://www.strumski.com/biblioteka/?id=2637|archive-date=2021-05-13|website=Strumski Online Library}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Blaže Ristovski |title=Историja на македонската нациjа |location=Скопjе |publisher=MANU |date=1999 |page=458}}</ref> He and his IMARO-wing officially supported at that time the [[Russophilia|Russophiles]] from the [[Democratic Party (Bulgaria)|Democratic Party]]. However, the idea to join the anti-Serbian [[Central Powers]], who fought against Russia, prevailed in Bulgaria, as well as among the rightists in the IMARO. Sandanski attempted to change this course and conspired to assassinate Bulgarian [[Tsar Ferdinand I]]. He proposed that Bulgaria be proclaimed as a republic and the foreign policy of the country to be changed. Sandanski seeked support among the opposition parties, which were on the side of the [[Allies of World War I|Entente]], but they refused to participate in the conspiracy, and it failed. As a result, he was assassinated near the [[Rozhen Monastery]] on 22 April 1915 while travelling from [[Melnik, Bulgaria|Melnik]] to [[Nevrokop]], by local right IMARO faction activists.<ref>{{cite book |trans-title=The fifty biggest assaults in Bulgarian history |author=Krum Blagov |title=50-те най-големи атентата в българската история |publisher=Издателство Репортер |date=21 September 2000 |isbn=954-8102-44-7 |page=178}}</ref> He was buried at the monastery.<ref name="mm" /> His famous words "To live means to struggle, the slave for freedom and the free man for perfection" are written on his grave.<ref name="dw">{{cite book |editor1=John B. Allcock |editor2=Antonia Young |title=Black Lambs & Grey Falcons: Women Travellers in the Balkans |publisher=Berghahn Books |date=2000 |isbn=1571817441 |pages=180-181}}</ref>
== External links ==
[[File:Sandanski2.jpg|right|270px|thumb|Sandanski (II) with IMARO members supporting Bulgarian troops during [[Balkan Wars]].]]
* [http://knigite.abv.bg/en/mm/index.htm Mercia MacDermott. For Freedom and Perfection. The Life of Yane Sandansky]
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[[File:Yane Sandanski Dead.jpg|right|thumb|252x252px|The body of Yane Sandanski, c. 1915]]
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* [http://www.promacedonia.org/bmark/lm_voevodi/index.html Memoirs of Yane Sandanski (original edition in Bulgarian in the form of text)]
* [http://www.promacedonia.org/bmark/lm/index.html Memoirs of Yane Sandanski (original edition in Bulgarian in the form of .jpg photocopies)]
* [http://www.angelfire.com/super2/vmro-istorija/Knigi/spomjs.htm Memoirs of Yane Sandanski (translated into contemporary Macedonian)]


== Views ==
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[[Category:Macedonian revolutionaries (ethnic group)|Sandanski, Yane]]
As the leader of the left-wing (federalist) faction, he supported the autonomy of Macedonia. He supported the 1908 [[Young Turk Revolution]], hoping that it would bring equality to all peoples in the Ottoman Empire and autonomy for Macedonia.<ref name="bio" /> Sandanski criticised the politics of both Serbia and Bulgaria and accused them of being more interested in the enlargement of their states than in the freedom of the people in Macedonia.<ref name="va" /> During the lack of the resistance against Ottoman authorities, the internationalist ideas of Bulgarian [[socialist]] activists influenced Sandanski's agenda: what was seen as [[national interests]] had to be subdued to the pan-Ottoman ones in order to achieve a "supra-national union" of all the nationalities within a reformed Empire.<ref name="dm" /> After the Young Turk Revolution, he publicly disowned Bulgarian nationalism. As chairman of the newly established People's Federative Party, he demanded democratisation of the political system, administrative autonomy for the provinces, abolition of national, religious, and social privileges, separation of religious from state affairs, secular education in state schools, and universal conscription. On that basis, the CUP had reached an understanding with his wing.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Balkan Wars from Contemporary Perception to Historic Memory |date=2017 |publisher=Springer International Publishing |isbn=9783319446424 |editor1=Katrin Boeckh |editor2=Sabine Rutar |pages=34-35}}</ref> He saw the solution of the [[Macedonian Question]] through the creation of a [[Balkan Federation]], which would include Macedonia and Adrianople.<ref name="db" /> Afterwards, he became disappointed with the [[Turkish nationalism|Turkish nationalist]] policy of the new government.<ref name="rd" /> Despite rejecting religion, he was deeply superstitious and remained as such throughout his life.<ref name="mm" /> He had never rejected the [[Bulgarian Exarchate]] as an institution, or denied that it had a role to play in the life of the [[Macedonian Bulgarians]].<ref>{{cite book |title=For Freedom and Perfection: The Life of Yané Sandansky |author=Mercia MacDermott |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QkZtAAAAMAAJ&q=Supremists+Ferdinand%E2%80%99s+generals |isbn=978-1-85172-014-9 |publisher=Journeyman Press |date=1988 |pages=424-425 |quote=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.}}</ref> Per a member of his cheta Atanas Yanev, Sandanski was saddened by internecine struggles.<ref>{{cite book |quote=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!" (...) 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. |title=For Freedom and Perfection: The Life of Yané Sandansky |author=Mercia MacDermott |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QkZtAAAAMAAJ&q=Supremists+Ferdinand%E2%80%99s+generals |isbn=978-1-85172-014-9 |publisher=Journeyman Press |date=1988 |pages=186-187}}</ref>
[[Category:Bulgarian revolutionaries|Sandanski, Yane]]


== Legacy ==
⚫
[[bg:Яне Сандански]]
[[File:Yane Sandanski dead place.JPG|thumb|right|250px|Place of Sandanski's death, near the village of [[Pirin (Bulgarian village)|Pirin]].]]
[[mk:Јане Сандански]]
During World War II, the [[Macedonian Partisans]] named units after him and other figures, with whom the [[Communist Party of Yugoslavia]] and its regional leaders identified themselves with.<ref>{{cite book |author=Andrew Rossos |title=Macedonia and the Macedonians: A History |date=2013 |publisher=Hoover Institution Press |isbn=9780817948832 |pages=192-193}}</ref> Communist Partisan detachment, part of the [[Bulgarian resistance movement during World War II]], was named after him too.<ref>История на антифашистката борба в България, т. II 1943/1944 г., С., 1976, стр. 175.</ref> In [[People's Republic of Bulgaria]], the regime appreciated Sandanski because of his socialist ideas and honoured him by renaming the town Sveti Vrach to [[Sandanski]], in 1949. In November 1968, the historical institute of the [[Bulgarian Academy of Sciences]] confronted the [[Yugoslav Macedonia]]n attempt to claim him as an ethnic Macedonian with a monograph.<ref>{{cite book |author=Spyridon Sfetas |date=2017 |chapter=The Fusion of Regional and Cold War Problems: The Macedonian Triangle Between Greece, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, 1963–80 |title=The Balkans in the Cold War, |editor=Svetozar Rajak |publisher=Springer |isbn=1137439033 |page=313}}</ref> A statue of him was placed in the entrance of [[Melnik, Bulgaria|Melnik]] in 1972, where he has been seen as a national hero. In 1981, Bulgarian communist politician [[Lyudmila Zhivkova]] listed him and Delchev as among the "national heroes who fought for the freedom of the Bulgarian nation."<ref name="id" /> English historian [[Mercia MacDermott]] published a biographical book called ''For Freedom and Perfection: The Life of Yane Sandansky'' in 1988. Per Diane Waller, he is a controversial figure and MacDermott admitted that she had a "real battle" over him.<ref name="dw" /> MacDermott has described him as a Bulgarian revolutionary and whose wing, under the influence of socialist ideas, tried to solve the [[Macedonian Question]] by uniting all the Balkan peoples.<ref>{{cite book |title=For Freedom and Perfection: The life of Yané Sandansky |author=Mercia MacDermott |page=Abstract |date=1988 |url=https://macedonia.kroraina.com/en/mm/mm_abstract.htm}}</ref> After the [[fall of communism]], nationalist Bulgarian historians have depicted him as a traitor to the Bulgarians, a collaborator of the Turks (seen as Bulgarian enemies) and a robber who was only motivated by money.<ref name="mh" /> [[VMRO – Bulgarian National Movement|VMRO-Union of Macedonian Associations]]' president {{Interlanguage link|Stoyan Boyadziev|bg|Стоян Бояджиев}} described Sandanski as an extremely controversial Bulgarian revolutionary, whose separatist асtivitу however produced as a whole Macedonian nationalism.<ref>{{cite book |author=Stoyan Boyadziev |title=Истинският лик на Яне Сандански |publisher=Makedoniya Press |date=1994 |page=21 |language=bg}}</ref> Bulgarian president [[Georgi Parvanov]] placed a wreath on his monument in Melnik together with his Macedonian counterpart [[Branko Crvenkovski]] in March 2008.<ref name="db" /> Parvanov, who is a professional historian, claimеd that earlier he was critical to Sandanski's activities, but from the distance of time, he thinks that Sandanski cannot be reproached for having a self-consciousness different from the Bulgarian one.<ref>Първанов: Бях критичен към делата на Яне Сандански, но той е българин. [https://www.dnes.bg/a/58-obshtestvo/42135-parvanov-byah-kritichen-kam-delata-na-yane-sandanski-no-toy-e-balgarin 05.10.2007 г., Днес.бг.]</ref>

The identity of Sandanski has been disputed between Bulgaria and North Macedonia.<ref name="id">{{cite book |editor1=John Lampe |editor2=Mark Mazower |title=Ideologies and National Identities: The Case of Twentieth-Century Southeastern Europe |date=2004 |publisher=Central European University Press |isbn=9789639241824 |pages=110-115}}</ref> According to the Turkish professor of history Mehmet Hacısalihoğlu, who is interested in nation-building in the late Ottoman Empire,<ref>{{cite web |website=Yıldız University, Department of Political Science and International Relations |url=http://www.sbu.yildiz.edu.tr/en/kadro.php?id=87 |author=Prof. Dr. Mehmet Hacısalihoğlu |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190122174417/http://www.sbu.yildiz.edu.tr/en/kadro.php?id=87 |title=Profile |archive-date=22 January 2019}}</ref> it is very difficult to find a definitive answer to some questions regarding Sandanski's biography. Hacısalihoğlu suggested answering the question "Was Sandanski a betrayer of national Bulgarian interests in Macedonia?" positively but also pointed out that the region under his influence was not subject much to the oppressive measures of the CUP government due to his good relations with the CUP. He supported an autonomous Macedonia because it would permit him to expand his role as a political leader. However, this does not mean, he regarded the [[Macedonian Bulgarians|Bulgarian Macedonian]] population as a separate [[Macedonians (ethnic group)|Macedonian nation]].<ref name="mh" />

In North Macedonia, Sandanski is considered a national hero. Macedonian historian [[Ivan Katardžiev]] argued that the political separatism of Sandanski represented a form of early [[Macedonian nationalism]],<ref>{{cite book |author=Ivan Katardžiev |title=Makedonija sto godini po Ilindenskoto vostanie |location=Skopje |publisher=Kultura |date=2003 |pages=54-69}}</ref> asserting that at that time it was only a political phenomenon, without ethnic character. His name is mentioned in the national anthem of North Macedonia, ''[[Denes nad Makedonija]]'' (Today over Macedonia).<ref>{{cite book |title=Loyal Unto Death: Trust and Terror in Revolutionary Macedonia |isbn=9780253008473 |publisher=Indiana University Press |date=2013 |author=Keith Brown |page=174}}</ref> A monument commemorating him was placed in Skopje as part of the [[Skopje 2014]] project.<ref>{{cite book |title=Macedonia’s Long Transition From Independence to the Prespa Agreement and Beyond |publisher=Springer International Publishing |editor1=Ivan Dodovski |editor2=Robert Hudson |isbn=9783031207730 |date=2023 |page=198}}</ref> The [[Macedonian historiography]] has emphasised the particularity of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation's left-wing and Macedonian historians refer to his actions in an attempt to demonstrate the existence of Macedonian nationalism or at least ''proto-nationalism'' within a part of the local revolutionary movement at his time.<ref name="igd" /> They also depict him as a fighter against the "Bulgarian aspirations in Macedonia" and the "Turkish yoke".<ref name="mh" /> Sandanski's grave has been a place for commemoration and gatherings by Macedonian nationalists from Bulgaria and North Macedonia. In response, Bulgarian nationalists set up a second gravestone next to the original, inscribing an alleged statement by Sandanski in a Bulgarian patriotic tone.<ref>{{cite book |editor1=Maria Couroucli |editor2=Tchavdar Marinov |title=Balkan Heritages: Negotiating History and Culture |date=2017 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=9781134800759 |pages=84, 92}}</ref> [[Sandanski Point]] on the E coast of Ioannes Paulus II Peninsula, [[Livingston Island]], Antarctica, was named after him by the Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition.

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==Further reading==
{{commons category}}
{{Wikiquote}}
⚫
* [http://www.promacedonia.org/bmark/lm_voevodi/1_0.htm Memoirs of Yane Sandanski] (original edition in Bulgarian)
* Pavel Deliradev: [https://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/47608518?access_key=key-qs0wta5vf8jbe9zptkd Yane Sandanski] (Biography, 1946)
* Hristo Konstantinov: [https://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/59185920?access_key=key-8z1c4aeyfwmqil91anw (Old Man Yane Sandanski Figure and Deed)] (Biography, 1939)

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sandanski, Yane}}
[[Category:1872 births]]
[[Category:1915 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Kresna]]
[[Category:Members of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization]]
⚫
[[Category:Bulgarian revolutionaries]]
[[Category:Balkan federalists]]
[[Category:Bulgarian people of the Balkan Wars]]
[[Category:Macedonian Bulgarians]]
[[Category:Assassinated Bulgarian people]]
[[Category:People murdered in Bulgaria]]
[[Category:Deaths by firearm in Bulgaria]]
[[Category:Revolutionaries from the Ottoman Empire]]
[[Category:People assassinated in the 20th century]]

Latest revision as of 18:59, 22 December 2024

Voivode

Yane Sandanski
Yane Sandanski c. 1900
Native name
Яне Сандански
Birth nameYane Ivanov Sandanski
Born(1872-05-18)18 May 1872
Vlahi, Ottoman Empire
Died22 April 1915(1915-04-22) (aged 42)
Blatata, near Pirin, Tsardom of Bulgaria
Buried
Rozhen Monastery
Allegiance
Service / branch Bulgarian Army
Battles / warsIlinden Uprising
Macedonian Struggle
Balkan Wars
Signature

Yane Ivanov Sandanski (Bulgarian: Яне Иванов Сандански, Macedonian: Јане Иванов Сандански, romanized: Jane Ivanov Sandanski;[1] Originally spelled in older Bulgarian orthography as Яне Ивановъ Сандански (Yane Ivanov Sandanski);[2] 18 May 1872 – 22 April 1915) was a Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary and leader of the left-wing of the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organisation (IMARO).[3]

In his youth Sandanski was involved in the anti-Ottoman struggle, joining initially the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee (SMAC), but later switched to IMARO. As an activist of the Liberal Party (Radoslavists), he became the head of the local prison in Dupnitsa. After the Ilinden uprising, Sandanski became the leader of the Serres revolutionary district. 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, collaborating with the Young Turks and founding the Bulgarian People's Federative Party.[4] Sandanski took up arms on the side of Bulgaria during the Balkan Wars (1912–13). Afterwards, he became involved in Bulgarian public life again but was assassinated by the rivalling IMARO right-wing faction activists.

He is recognised as a national hero in both Bulgaria and North Macedonia,[5] but his identity is also disputed between both countries. While People's Republic of Bulgaria honoured him,[6] after the fall of communism he has been described by Bulgarian nationalist historians as a betrayer of the Bulgarian national interests and collaborator with the Turks. On the contrary, in North Macedonia, the positive connotation of him, created in the times of Communist Yugoslavia is still alive, and he has been portrayed there as a fighter against the "Bulgarian aspirations in Macedonia" and the "Turkish yoke."

Life

[edit]

Early life and activity

[edit]
Yane Sandanski in the Bulgarian Army c. 1892

Sandanski was born on 18 May 1872 in the village of Vlahi near Kresna, then in the Ottoman Empire, now in Bulgaria.[7] He was the third and last child of Ivan and Milka, after Todor and Sofia. His father Ivan participated in the Kresna-Razlog Uprising as a standard-bearer in a rebel detachment. In 1879, after the suppression of the uprising, his family moved to Dupnitsa, in the recently established Principality of Bulgaria, where Sandanski received his elementary education. He had to drop out of school after completing two years of post-elementary education due to poverty and became the apprentice of a shoemaker. From 1892 to 1894 he was subject to compulsory military service in the Bulgarian army, as part of the Thirteenth Regiment which was stationed in Kyustendil, and he was demobilized with the rank of corporal.[8] He joined initially the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee (SMAC) in 1895 during the Committee's cheta action into the Pomaks-inhabited regions of the Western Rhodopes.[9] In 1897 in Dupnitsa, a new detachment of the Supreme Committee was formed, under the leadership of Krastyo Zahariev, where Sandanski joined too. After the detachment entered Pirin Mountains, it encountered Ottoman troops. In one of the battles Sandanski was wounded and his detachment returned him to Bulgaria for treatment.[8] Sandanski operated as an activist of Radoslavov's wing of the Liberal Party and shortly after it came to power in February 1899, he was appointed head of the Dupnitsa prison.[10] He switched to the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (IMRO) in 1901. He built the organisation's network of committees in the districts of Serres and Gorna Dzhumaya.[9] Due to the organisation's bad financial situation, he had to ponder different ways to earn money.[8] He settled on kidnapping an American Protestant missionary for ransom. On 3 September 1901, a Protestant missionary named Ellen Stone along with her companions set out on horseback across the mountainous hinterlands of Macedonia and were ambushed by his detachment led by him and his friend Hristo Chernopeev. She was kidnapped along with her Bulgarian companion Katerina Tsilka.[8] It resulted in the Miss Stone Affair - America's first modern hostage crisis. SMAC attempted to acquire both women but the attempt was foiled by Sandanski.[11] The affair ended after the organisation received the ransom money (which was used to purchase weapons) and the women were released.[7][12]

Activity in IMARO

[edit]

In 1902, Sandanski persuaded the Vlachs in the sanjak of Serres from Melnik, mostly shepherds, to join his Serres committee, in exchange for his protection against soldiers and detachments.[12] He came to be known as the "Tsar of Pirin."[13] Sandanski was opposed to the Ilinden uprising, considering it premature, although he did participate in the military actions in the region of Serres.[11] The failure of the Ilinden uprising resulted in the split of the IMRO into a left-wing (federalist) faction in the Serres and Strumica districts and a right-wing (centralist) faction in the Bitola and Skopje districts. The left-wing faction advocated the creation of a Balkan Federation (including Macedonia) with equality for all subjects and nationalities, as well as favouring the decentralisation of IMRO. The right-wing faction of IMRO aimed for the unification of Macedonia with Bulgaria and advocated for centralisation to counter the incursions of Serb and Greek bands into Macedonia.[9][14] Per Bulgarian historian and former IMARO member Hristo Silyanov, Sandanski's faction sentenced Boris Sarafov to death in 1904.[8] Sandanski created observation posts in his district order to watch for Turkish detachments, and the peasants were forced to warn or be killed. He also organised military training for all able men. Several people in his district were executed as collaborators. French consul Guillois described Sandanski as "a ferocious man, bloodthirsty...who enjoys an absolute authority over all Bulgarian villages to the northeast of Salonika."[12] Sandanski justified the executions in an open letter to him and argued that the organisation had the right to ignore the law of the land and to punish as it saw fit.[8]

In 1905, the Rila Congress of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation adopted the main ideas of the left-wing faction led by Sandanski. The organisation changed its name to IMARO (Internal Macedono-Adrianopolitan Revolutionary Organisation) and allowed membership for people from European Turkey independently of sex, religion, nationality and conviction.[15] At the end of the congress, Sandanski confronted Sarafov, accusing him of having accepted money from the Serbs, having facilitated the transit of Serbian detachments into Macedonia and organising his own armed groups in order to weaken the organisation and take the leadership. In turn, Sarafov accused him of being a traitor due to his refusal to participate in the battles of the Ilinden uprising. However, the congress ended with the delegates deciding not to examine the cases of the leaders who could have violated the rules in order to preserve the organisation's unity. In 1906, his faction controlled Serres and Strumica and for geographical reasons, it rarely fought against Serbs or Greeks but often against Ottoman troops. Mihail Daev, who was a member of his committee, sent a letter to the right-wing faction in September 1907, where he asserted that as long as Sandanski was alive, there was no question of uniting the organisation again. The letter was discovered by Todor Panitsa, an associate of Sandanski and on 10 October, the Serres committee sentenced Boris Sarafov, Ivan Garvanov and Mihail Daev to death.[12] Panitsa assassinated Sarafov and Garvanov in the same year. After their assassination, Bulgarian authorities issued an arrest warrant against Sandanski.[16][17] The Kyustendil congress of the right-wing faction of IMARO in 1908, sentenced him to death, which led to a final disintegration of the organisation.[18]

Collaboration with the Young Turks

[edit]
Sandanski, Dimo Hadzhidimov, Todor Panitsa and other Federalists with Young Turks
The manifesto proclaimed by Sandanski at the beginning of the Young Turk Revolution. The socialist views of its 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.[19]

Sandanski and his faction decided to work with the Young Turks in 1907.[20] During the first days of Young Turk Revolution, the collaboration of the Macedonian leftists with the Ottoman activists was stated in a special Manifesto to all the nationalities of the Empire. Sandanski called his compatriots to discard the "propaganda" of official Bulgaria in order to live together in a peaceful way with the Turkish people. The manifesto was authored by Bulgarian socialist Pavel Deliradev but signed by Sandanski.[8] The loyalty to the Empire declared by Sandanski deliberately blurred the distinction between Macedonian and Ottoman political agenda.[15] Among the Ottoman public, Sandanski was known as "King of the Mountains" and "Sandan Pasha". After the revolution, Sandanski and Chernopeev worked towards creating a left-wing political party called People's Federative Party, whose headquarters were in Thessaloniki (Salonica).[18] This federalist project was supposed to include different ethnic sections in itself, but this idea failed and the only section that was created was the faction of Sandanski, called Bulgarian section. In this way its activists only "revived" their Bulgarian national identification, as Sandanski's faction advocated the particular interests of the "Bulgarian nationality" in the Empire.[15][21][22] In 12 April 1909, a counter-revolution took place in Istanbul and conservative Muslim forces were able to gain control. The Young Turks gathered their forces in Salonica and marched upon the capital. A detachment of 1,200 IMARO revolutionaries took part under the command of him, Todor Panitsa, and Hristo Chernopeev.[23] The capital was captured by the Young Turks. Abdul Hamid II was deposed from the throne.[24]

Through his good relations with the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), Sandanski contributed to the appointment of local administrators and the affairs of school education. At the beginning of 1910, however Chernopeev, who was the leader of the leftist group in Strumica, left politics and moved to Sofia. There, he founded a new illegal organization, the Bulgarian National Macedonian Adrianople Revolutionary Organization. Chernopeev also invited him to join him, however Sandanski ignored his invitation. The Bulgarian press launched a propaganda campaign against Sandanski. Sandanski was accused of betraying the Bulgarians in Macedonia, since he did not launch an armed resistance against the Ottoman government. The socialist groups in Bulgaria also criticised Sandanski as a collaborator of the Turks. Despite the pressure and critiques, Sandanski continued with his legitimate political activity. The CUP also wanted to carry out the disarmament of the population in the region dominated by Sandanski. Sandanski rejected the attempt, resulting in tension between him and the CUP. In the process of negotiations, Sandanski ensured the CUP that in his region he was responsible for all illegal actions and that it was unnecessary to disarm the population. The CUP accepted his proposition and halted the disarmament of the Christian population in the area.[14] The rivaling faction's activists of IMARO organised several unsuccessful assassination attempts against Sandanski at that time. They came closest to achieving their goal in Thessaloniki, where Tane Nikolov managed to kill two of his comrades and heavily wounded Sandanski.

Balkan Wars and aftermath

[edit]

Sandanski was at the service of the Bulgarian army during the Balkan Wars.[9] During the First Balkan War, the area that Sandanski controlled was occupied by Bulgarian forces. Sandanski helped the occupying armies with his guerillas. The Macedonian Bulgarian detachments burned Muslim villages and massacred Muslims and within his region, they were treated in the same manner. The Muslim men and women of the village Petrovo were burnt to death and only the children were left alive. Per MacDermott, Sandanski was not aware about the incident. He usually tried to prevent such massacres on the Muslims. When he learned about this massacre in Petrovo, he gave the children of killed Muslims to the Bulgarian villagers.[14] Sandanski had a unit under his control which fought together with the Bulgarians, but under independent command. It was located at the right flank of the Seventh Rila Division, numbered 2,000 men and was also the unit that captured Melnik.[16] Later, Sandanski and his comrades were included in the Macedonian-Adrianopolitan Volunteer Corps and were active in the Adrianople region. In June 1913, the Bulgarian government sent a delegation headed by Sandanski to Albania for negotiations with the provisional Albanian government for joint action in the event of a war with Serbia and Greece. He gave an interview for the Italian newspaper "Il Secolo" in Tirana, where he said that he came to an agreement with the Albanians and that revolutionary activity would be renewed.[25]

After the wars, most of Macedonia was ceded to Greece and Serbia, while Pirin Macedonia was ceded to Bulgaria and Sandanski resettled in the Kingdom. On July 1914, the Bulgarian assembly pardoned him for all offences.[8] In the same year, Macedonian nationalist Dimitrija Čupovski under the pseudonym Strezo wrote that Sandanski was a Bulgarian agent, bodyguard of the Bulgarian prince and an ordinary criminal.[26][27] He and his IMARO-wing officially supported at that time the Russophiles from the Democratic Party. However, the idea to join the anti-Serbian Central Powers, who fought against Russia, prevailed in Bulgaria, as well as among the rightists in the IMARO. Sandanski attempted to change this course and conspired to assassinate Bulgarian Tsar Ferdinand I. He proposed that Bulgaria be proclaimed as a republic and the foreign policy of the country to be changed. Sandanski seeked support among the opposition parties, which were on the side of the Entente, but they refused to participate in the conspiracy, and it failed. As a result, he was assassinated near the Rozhen Monastery on 22 April 1915 while travelling from Melnik to Nevrokop, by local right IMARO faction activists.[28] He was buried at the monastery.[8] His famous words "To live means to struggle, the slave for freedom and the free man for perfection" are written on his grave.[29]

Sandanski (II) with IMARO members supporting Bulgarian troops during Balkan Wars.
The body of Yane Sandanski, c. 1915

Views

[edit]

As the leader of the left-wing (federalist) faction, he supported the autonomy of Macedonia. He supported the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, hoping that it would bring equality to all peoples in the Ottoman Empire and autonomy for Macedonia.[7] Sandanski criticised the politics of both Serbia and Bulgaria and accused them of being more interested in the enlargement of their states than in the freedom of the people in Macedonia.[24] During the lack of the resistance against Ottoman authorities, the internationalist ideas of Bulgarian socialist activists influenced Sandanski's agenda: what was seen as national interests had to be subdued to the pan-Ottoman ones in order to achieve a "supra-national union" of all the nationalities within a reformed Empire.[15] After the Young Turk Revolution, he publicly disowned Bulgarian nationalism. As chairman of the newly established People's Federative Party, he demanded democratisation of the political system, administrative autonomy for the provinces, abolition of national, religious, and social privileges, separation of religious from state affairs, secular education in state schools, and universal conscription. On that basis, the CUP had reached an understanding with his wing.[30] He saw the solution of the Macedonian Question through the creation of a Balkan Federation, which would include Macedonia and Adrianople.[9] Afterwards, he became disappointed with the Turkish nationalist policy of the new government.[11] Despite rejecting religion, he was deeply superstitious and remained as such throughout his life.[8] He had never rejected the Bulgarian Exarchate as an institution, or denied that it had a role to play in the life of the Macedonian Bulgarians.[31] Per a member of his cheta Atanas Yanev, Sandanski was saddened by internecine struggles.[32]

Legacy

[edit]
Place of Sandanski's death, near the village of Pirin.

During World War II, the Macedonian Partisans named units after him and other figures, with whom the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and its regional leaders identified themselves with.[33] Communist Partisan detachment, part of the Bulgarian resistance movement during World War II, was named after him too.[34] In People's Republic of Bulgaria, the regime appreciated Sandanski because of his socialist ideas and honoured him by renaming the town Sveti Vrach to Sandanski, in 1949. In November 1968, the historical institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences confronted the Yugoslav Macedonian attempt to claim him as an ethnic Macedonian with a monograph.[35] A statue of him was placed in the entrance of Melnik in 1972, where he has been seen as a national hero. In 1981, Bulgarian communist politician Lyudmila Zhivkova listed him and Delchev as among the "national heroes who fought for the freedom of the Bulgarian nation."[36] English historian Mercia MacDermott published a biographical book called For Freedom and Perfection: The Life of Yane Sandansky in 1988. Per Diane Waller, he is a controversial figure and MacDermott admitted that she had a "real battle" over him.[29] MacDermott has described him as a Bulgarian revolutionary and whose wing, under the influence of socialist ideas, tried to solve the Macedonian Question by uniting all the Balkan peoples.[37] After the fall of communism, nationalist Bulgarian historians have depicted him as a traitor to the Bulgarians, a collaborator of the Turks (seen as Bulgarian enemies) and a robber who was only motivated by money.[14] VMRO-Union of Macedonian Associations' president Stoyan Boyadziev [bg] described Sandanski as an extremely controversial Bulgarian revolutionary, whose separatist асtivitу however produced as a whole Macedonian nationalism.[38] Bulgarian president Georgi Parvanov placed a wreath on his monument in Melnik together with his Macedonian counterpart Branko Crvenkovski in March 2008.[9] Parvanov, who is a professional historian, claimеd that earlier he was critical to Sandanski's activities, but from the distance of time, he thinks that Sandanski cannot be reproached for having a self-consciousness different from the Bulgarian one.[39]

The identity of Sandanski has been disputed between Bulgaria and North Macedonia.[36] According to the Turkish professor of history Mehmet Hacısalihoğlu, who is interested in nation-building in the late Ottoman Empire,[40] it is very difficult to find a definitive answer to some questions regarding Sandanski's biography. Hacısalihoğlu suggested answering the question "Was Sandanski a betrayer of national Bulgarian interests in Macedonia?" positively but also pointed out that the region under his influence was not subject much to the oppressive measures of the CUP government due to his good relations with the CUP. He supported an autonomous Macedonia because it would permit him to expand his role as a political leader. However, this does not mean, he regarded the Bulgarian Macedonian population as a separate Macedonian nation.[14]

In North Macedonia, Sandanski is considered a national hero. Macedonian historian Ivan Katardžiev argued that the political separatism of Sandanski represented a form of early Macedonian nationalism,[41] asserting that at that time it was only a political phenomenon, without ethnic character. His name is mentioned in the national anthem of North Macedonia, Denes nad Makedonija (Today over Macedonia).[42] A monument commemorating him was placed in Skopje as part of the Skopje 2014 project.[43] The Macedonian historiography has emphasised the particularity of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation's left-wing and Macedonian historians refer to his actions in an attempt to demonstrate the existence of Macedonian nationalism or at least proto-nationalism within a part of the local revolutionary movement at his time.[16] They also depict him as a fighter against the "Bulgarian aspirations in Macedonia" and the "Turkish yoke".[14] Sandanski's grave has been a place for commemoration and gatherings by Macedonian nationalists from Bulgaria and North Macedonia. In response, Bulgarian nationalists set up a second gravestone next to the original, inscribing an alleged statement by Sandanski in a Bulgarian patriotic tone.[44] Sandanski Point on the E coast of Ioannes Paulus II Peninsula, Livingston Island, Antarctica, was named after him by the Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition.

References

[edit]
  1. ^ John Neubauer; Marcel Cornis-Pope, eds. (2004). History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Centuries. John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 358, 506. ISBN 9789027234537.
  2. ^ Движението отсамъ Вардара и борбата съ върховиститѣ, съобщава Л. Милетичъ (Издава „Македонскиятъ Наученъ Институтъ", София - Печатница П. Глушковъ - 1927), стр. 11.
  3. ^ Loring Danforth. "Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization". Encyclopædia Britannica. 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.
  4. ^ Maria Todorova (2020). The Lost World of Socialists at Europe’s Margins: Imagining Utopia, 1870s - 1920s. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 64. ISBN 1350150347. The other prominent member of the Socialist Workers' Federation, besides the Sephardic Circle and the "anarcho-liberals," was the People's Federative Party–Bulgarian Section. The latter was founded in April 1909 by IMRO members who actively participated in the Young Turk Revolution and the "Army of Freedom" march on Istanbul to quell the countercoup in 1909. It was strongly divided along ideological lines and different strategic choices around social democrats like Dimitîr Vlahov (1878–1953), nationalists with socialist leanings like Iane Sandanski (1872–1915), and nationalists like Khristo Chernopeev.
  5. ^ Vemund Aarbakke (2011). "Images of imperial legacy: The impact of nationalizing discourse on the image of the last years of Ottoman rule in Macedonia". In Tea Sindbæk; Maxmilian Hartmuth (eds.). Images of Imperial Legacy, Modern Discourses on the social and cultural impact of Ottoman and Habsburg rule in Southeast Europe. LIT Verlag Münster. p. 121. ISBN 3643108508. The way Bulgarian and Macedonian history and identities are intertwined is exemplified by the dispute over the identity of revolutionary heroes such as Gotse Delchev and Yane Sandanski. Bulgarian nationalists, for example, ridicule their Macedonian counterparts' identification with Sandanski, since archival documents refer to him as Bulgarian.
  6. ^ Frederick F. Anscombe (2014). State, Faith, and Nation in Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Lands. Cambridge University Press. p. 153. ISBN 9781107729674.
  7. ^ a b c Wojciech Roszkowski; Jan Kofman, eds. (2008). Biographical Dictionary of Central and Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century. M.E. Sharpe. pp. 882–883. ISBN 9780765610270.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Mercia MacDermott (1988). For Freedom and Perfection: The Life of Yané Sandansky. London: Journeyman Press. pp. 1–3, 23, 42, 29–32, 67, 74, 83, 164–166, 241, 349–350, 466, 478. ISBN 978-1-85172-014-9.
  9. ^ a b c d e f Dimitar Bechev (2019). Historical Dictionary of North Macedonia (2nd ed.). Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 60, 113, 261–263. ISBN 1538119625.
  10. ^ Деметра Андонова, интервю с д-р Георги Георгиев: Яне Сандански заслужава паметен знак в Дупница, но обществото ни не е готово за този дебат. 18.05.2019 г. Kamerton.
  11. ^ a b c Raymond Detrez (2010). The A to Z of Bulgaria (2nd ed.). Scarecrow Press. pp. 390–391, 423. ISBN 9780810872028.
  12. ^ a b c d Nadine Lange-Akhund (1998). The Macedonian Question, 1893-1908, from Western Sources. East European Monographs. pp. 96–97, 234–238, 253, 263–264. ISBN 9780880333832.
  13. ^ Keith Brown (2003). The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation. Princeton University Press. p. 270. ISBN 9780691099958.
  14. ^ a b c d e f Mehmet Hacısalihoğlu (2012). "Yane Sandanski as a political leader in Macedonia in the era of the Young Turks". Cahiers balkaniques: 1–14. doi:10.4000/ceb.1192. ISSN 0290-7402.
  15. ^ a b c d Diana Mishkova, ed. (2009). We, the People. Politics of National Peculiarity in Southeastern Europe. Central European University Press. p. 125-126, 129-130. ISBN 9639776289.
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  18. ^ a b Denis Š. Ljuljanović (2023). Imagining Macedonia in the Age of Empire: State Policies, Networks and Violence (1878–1912). LIT Verlag Münster. pp. 219–221. ISBN 9783643914460.
  19. ^ Roumyana Preshelova, ed. (2021). Cities in the Balkans: Spaces, Faces, Memories. Sofia: IBSCT-BAS. p. 139. ISBN 978-619-7179-20-0.
  20. ^ Christopher Psilos (2005). "From Cooperation to Alienation: An Insight into Relations between the Serres Group and the Young Turks during the Years 1906–9". European History Quarterly. 35 (4): 546. doi:10.1177/0265691405056877.
  21. ^ Roumen Daskalov; Tchavdar Marinov (2013). Entangled Histories of the Balkans: Volume One. BRILL. p. 303. ISBN 900425076X.
  22. ^ Коста Църнушанов (1992). Македонизмът и съпротивата на Македония срещу него. Унив. изд. "Св. Климент Охридски". p. 101.
  23. ^ Bojinov, V. (2012). Bulgaria and the Young Turk Revolution (June 1908 – April 1909): The Beginning of the End of Ottoman Empire. Adam Academy Journal of Social Sciences, 2 (1). pp. 81-90.
  24. ^ a b Vemund Aarbakke (2003). Ethnic Rivalry and the Quest for Macedonia, 1870-1913. East European Monographs. pp. 148–151. ISBN 9780880335270.
  25. ^ Dimitŭr Got︠s︡ev (1983). Идеята за автономия като тактика в програмите на национално-освободителното движение в Македония и Одринско (1893-1941) (in Bulgarian). Изд. на БАН. pp. 40–41.
  26. ^ Dimitar, Chupovski (1914). "Dimitar Chupovski from the village of Papradishte, Veles region, Vardar Macedonia - "The case of J. Sandanski - not a Macedonian case", published in the newspaper "Makedonskij Golos", year II, issue. 11, Petrograd, Russia, November 20, 1914" (PDF). Strumski Online Library. Archived from the original on 13 May 2021.
  27. ^ Blaže Ristovski (1999). Историja на македонската нациjа. Скопjе: MANU. p. 458.
  28. ^ Krum Blagov (21 September 2000). 50-те най-големи атентата в българската история [The fifty biggest assaults in Bulgarian history]. Издателство Репортер. p. 178. ISBN 954-8102-44-7.
  29. ^ a b John B. Allcock; Antonia Young, eds. (2000). Black Lambs & Grey Falcons: Women Travellers in the Balkans. Berghahn Books. pp. 180–181. ISBN 1571817441.
  30. ^ Katrin Boeckh; Sabine Rutar, eds. (2017). The Balkan Wars from Contemporary Perception to Historic Memory. Springer International Publishing. pp. 34–35. ISBN 9783319446424.
  31. ^ Mercia MacDermott (1988). For Freedom and Perfection: The Life of Yané Sandansky. Journeyman Press. pp. 424–425. ISBN 978-1-85172-014-9. 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.
  32. ^ Mercia MacDermott (1988). For Freedom and Perfection: The Life of Yané Sandansky. Journeyman Press. pp. 186–187. ISBN 978-1-85172-014-9. 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!" (...) 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.
  33. ^ Andrew Rossos (2013). Macedonia and the Macedonians: A History. Hoover Institution Press. pp. 192–193. ISBN 9780817948832.
  34. ^ История на антифашистката борба в България, т. II 1943/1944 г., С., 1976, стр. 175.
  35. ^ Spyridon Sfetas (2017). "The Fusion of Regional and Cold War Problems: The Macedonian Triangle Between Greece, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, 1963–80". In Svetozar Rajak (ed.). The Balkans in the Cold War,. Springer. p. 313. ISBN 1137439033.
  36. ^ a b John Lampe; Mark Mazower, eds. (2004). Ideologies and National Identities: The Case of Twentieth-Century Southeastern Europe. Central European University Press. pp. 110–115. ISBN 9789639241824.
  37. ^ Mercia MacDermott (1988). For Freedom and Perfection: The life of Yané Sandansky. p. Abstract.
  38. ^ Stoyan Boyadziev (1994). Истинският лик на Яне Сандански (in Bulgarian). Makedoniya Press. p. 21.
  39. ^ Първанов: Бях критичен към делата на Яне Сандански, но той е българин. 05.10.2007 г., Днес.бг.
  40. ^ Prof. Dr. Mehmet Hacısalihoğlu. "Profile". Yıldız University, Department of Political Science and International Relations. Archived from the original on 22 January 2019.
  41. ^ Ivan Katardžiev (2003). Makedonija sto godini po Ilindenskoto vostanie. Skopje: Kultura. pp. 54–69.
  42. ^ Keith Brown (2013). Loyal Unto Death: Trust and Terror in Revolutionary Macedonia. Indiana University Press. p. 174. ISBN 9780253008473.
  43. ^ Ivan Dodovski; Robert Hudson, eds. (2023). Macedonia’s Long Transition From Independence to the Prespa Agreement and Beyond. Springer International Publishing. p. 198. ISBN 9783031207730.
  44. ^ Maria Couroucli; Tchavdar Marinov, eds. (2017). Balkan Heritages: Negotiating History and Culture. Taylor & Francis. pp. 84, 92. ISBN 9781134800759.

Further reading

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