Yane Sandanski: Difference between revisions

In his youth Sandanski was involved in the anti-Ottoman struggle, joining initially the [[Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee]] (SMAC), but later switched to IMARO. Sandanski also was 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). 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]].,<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> Hisbut 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 inand Macedonia collaborator with the Turks. InOn 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 by Macedonian historiansthere as a fighter against the "Bulgarian aspirations in Macedonia" and the "Turkish yoke."

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.

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 an 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" /> 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, [[Pirin Macedonia]] was ceded in 1913 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> Sandanski was assassinated near the [[Rozhen Monastery]] on 22 April 1915 while travelling from [[Melnik, Bulgaria|Melnik]] to [[Nevrokop]], by local IMARO 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}}</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>

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 communist regime appreciated Sandanski because of his socialist ideas and honoured him by renaming the town Sveti Vrach to [[Sandanski]], in 1949. Simultaneously, the communist politician [[Vladimir Poptomov]] referred to him and [[Gotse Delchev]] as sons of the Macedonian people, who had adopted his progressive and liberation ideas in Bulgaria and spoke and wrote only in the Bulgarian language.<ref>{{cite book |author=Yannis Sygkelos |title=Nationalism from the Left: The Bulgarian Communist Party During the Second World War and the Early Post-war Years |date=2011 |publisher=Brill |isbn=9789004192089 |page=205}}</ref> 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 Gotse 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" /> The[[VMRO IMRO– rightBulgarian National Movement|VMRO-wingUnion publicistof Macedonian Associations]]' president {{Interlanguage link|Stoyan Boyadziev|bg|Стоян hasБояджиев}} 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" />

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. [[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>Ристовски, Бл. Историja на македонската нациjа. Скопjе: МАНУ, 1999, стр. 458.</ref> 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.