Gotse Delchev

Georgi Nikolov Delchev (Bulgarian: Георги Николов Делчев; Macedonian: Ѓорѓи Николов Делчев; 4 February 1872 – 4 May 1903), known as Gotse Delchev or Goce Delčev (Гоце Делчев), was a prominent Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary (komitadji) and one of the most important leaders of what is commonly known as the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), active in the Ottoman-ruled Macedonia and Adrianople regions, as well as in Bulgaria, at the turn of the 20th century. Delchev was IMRO's foreign representative in Sofia, the capital of the Principality of Bulgaria. As such, he was also a member of the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee (SMAC), participating in the work of its governing body. He was killed in a skirmish with an Ottoman unit on the eve of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie uprising.
Born into a Bulgarian family in Kilkis, then in the Salonika vilayet of the Ottoman Empire, in his youth he was inspired by the ideals of earlier Bulgarian revolutionaries such as Vasil Levski and Hristo Botev, who envisioned the creation of a Bulgarian republic of ethnic and religious equality, as part of an imagined Balkan Federation. Delchev completed his secondary education in the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki and entered the Military School of His Princely Highness in Sofia, but at the final stage of his study, he was dismissed from it as an alleged socialist. Then he returned to Ottoman Macedonia and worked as a Bulgarian teacher, and immediately became an activist of the newly-found revolutionary movement in 1894.
Although considering himself to be an inheritor of the Bulgarian revolutionary traditions, he opted for Macedonian autonomy. Also for him, like for many Macedonian Bulgarians, originating from an area with mixed population, the idea of being 'Macedonian' acquired the importance of a certain native loyalty, that constructed a specific spirit of "local patriotism" and "multi-ethnic regionalism". He maintained the slogan promoted by William Ewart Gladstone, "Macedonia for the Macedonians", including all different nationalities inhabiting the area. Delchev was also an adherent of incipient socialism. His political agenda became the establishment through revolution of an autonomous Macedono-Adrianople supranational state into the framework of the Ottoman Empire, as a prelude to its incorporation within a future Balkan Federation. Despite having been educated in the spirit of Bulgarian nationalism, he revised the Organization's statute, where the membership was allowed only for Bulgarians. In this way he emphasized the importance of cooperation among all ethnic groups in the territories concerned in order to obtain political autonomy.
Delchev is considered a national hero in Bulgaria and North Macedonia. Because his autonomist ideas have stimulated the subsequent development of Macedonian nationalism, in the latter it is claimed he was an ethnic Macedonian revolutionary. Thus, Delchev's legacy has been disputed between both countries. Nevertheless, some researchers think that behind IMRO's idea of autonomy a reserve plan for eventual incorporation into Bulgaria was hidden. Per some of his contemporaries and Bulgarian academic sources, Delchev supported Macedonia's incorporation into Bulgaria as another option too. Other researchers find the identity of Delchev and other IMRO figures to be open to different interpretations.
He was born to a large family on 4 February 1872 (23 January according to the Julian calendar) in Kılkış (Kukush), then in the Ottoman Empire (today in Greece), to Nikola and Sultana. He was christened as Georgi. By the mid-19th century, Kılkış was populated predominantly with Macedonian Bulgarians and became one of the centers of the Bulgarian national revival. During the 1860s and 1870s it was under the jurisdiction of the Bulgarian Uniate Church, but after 1884 most of its population gradually joined the Bulgarian Exarchate. As a student, Delchev studied first at the Bulgarian Uniate primary school and then at the Bulgarian Exarchate junior high school. He also read widely in the town's chitalishte (community cultural center), where he was impressed with revolutionary books, and was especially imbued with thoughts of the liberation of Bulgaria. In 1888 his family sent him to the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki, where he organized and led a secret revolutionary brotherhood. Delchev also distributed revolutionary literature, which he acquired from the school's graduates who studied in Bulgaria. Bulgarian students graduating from high school were faced with few career prospects and Delchev decided to follow the path of his former schoolmate Boris Sarafov, entering the military school in Sofia in 1891. He became disappointed with life in Bulgaria, especially the commercialized life of the society in Sofia and with the authoritarian politics of the prime minister Stefan Stambolov, accused of being a dictator.
Delchev spent his leaves from school in the company of emigrants from the Macedonian region, most of them belonged to the Young Macedonian Literary Society. One of his friends was Vasil Glavinov, a future leader of the Macedonian-Adrianople Social Democratic Group, a faction of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers Party. Through Glavinov and his comrades, he came into contact with different people, who offered a new form of social struggle. In June 1892, Delchev and the journalist Kosta Shahov, a chairman of the Young Macedonian Literary Society, met in Sofia with the bookseller from Thessaloniki, Ivan Hadzhinikolov. Hadzhinikolov disclosed at this meeting his plans to create a revolutionary organization in Ottoman Macedonia. They discussed together its basic principles and agreed fully on all scores. Delchev explained that he had no intention of remaining an officer and promised after graduating from the Military School, he would return to Macedonia to join the organization. In September 1894, only a month before graduation, he was expelled for his socialist sympathies. He was given the possibility to enter the Army again by re-applying for a commission, but he refused. Afterwards he returned to Macedonia to become a teacher and set up secret committees, based on Vasil Levski's example. At that time, the revolutionary organization commonly known as Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) was in its early stages of development, forming its committees around the Bulgarian Exarchate schools. Although, Delchev despised the Exarchate policy in Macedonia.
In Ottoman Thessaloniki, IMRO was founded in 1893, by a small band of anti-Ottoman Macedono-Bulgarian revolutionaries, including Hadzhinikolov. The earliest known statute of the Organization calls it Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees (BMARC). It was decided at a meeting in Resen in August 1894 to preferably recruit teachers from the Bulgarian schools as committee members. In 1894, Delchev became a teacher in an Exarchate school in Štip, where he met another teacher, Dame Gruev, who was also a leader of the newly established local committee of the IMRO. Gruev told him about the existence of the Organization. Delchev impressed Gruev with his honesty and joined the Organization immediately, gradually becoming one of its main leaders. After this, Gruev concentrated his attention on Štip, while Delchev attempted to win over the surrounding villages. It is unknown how many active members the Organization had from 1893 to 1897. In a letter from 1895, Delchev explained that the liberation of Macedonia as a state lies in an internal uprising, that a systematic agitation was conducted in order for the population to be ready in the near future, otherwise the result of a premature uprising would be tragic. Despite his and Gruev's efforts, the number of members grew slowly. Delchev travelled during the vacations throughout Macedonia and established and organized committees in villages and cities. In this period, he adopted Ahil (Archilles) as his nom de guerre. Delchev also established contacts with some of the leaders of the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee (SMAC). Its official declaration was a struggle for the autonomy of the Macedonian and Adrianople regions. However, as a rule, most of SMAC's leaders were officers with stronger connections with the governments, waging terrorist struggle against the Ottomans in the hope of provoking a war and thus Bulgarian annexation of both areas. In late 1895 he arrived in Bulgaria's capital Sofia from the name of the "Bulgarian Central Macedonian-Adrianopolitan Revolutionary Committee" to prevent any foreign interference in its work. In 1896, he advocated for the establishment of a secret revolutionary network, that would prepare the population for an armed uprising against the Ottoman rule, based on Levski's example. After spending the next school year (1895/1896) as a teacher in the town of Bansko, in May 1896 he was arrested by the Ottoman authorities as a person suspected of revolutionary activity and spent about a month in jail. Delchev participated in the Thessaloniki Congress of the IMRO in 1896. The Central Committee was placed in Thessaloniki. He, along with Petrov, wrote the new organization's statute, which divided Macedonia and Adrianople areas into seven regions, each with a regional structure and secret police, following the Internal Revolutionary Organization's example. Afterwards, Delchev gave his resignation as a teacher and in the same year, he moved back to Bulgaria.
From 1896 to 1902, he was a representative of the Foreign Committee of the IMRO in Sofia. Gyorche Petrov joined him as a representative in March 1897. At that time the Organization was largely dependent on the Bulgarian state and army assistance, that was mediated by him and Petrov. Delchev envisioned independent production of weapons and traveled in 1897 to Odessa, where he met with Armenian revolutionaries Stepan Zorian and Christapor Mikaelian to exchange terrorist skills and especially bomb-making. That resulted in the establishment of a bomb manufacturing plant in the village of Sabler near Kyustendil in Bulgaria. The bombs were later smuggled across the Ottoman border into Macedonia. In 1898 the Organization decided to create permanent acting armed bands (chetas) in every district, with Delchev as their leader.
He was the first to organize and lead a band into Macedonia with the purpose of robbing or kidnapping rich Turks. This activity of his had variable success. His experiences demonstrate the weaknesses and difficulties which the Organization faced in its early years. In 1900, he resided for a while in Burgas, where Delchev organized another bomb manufacturing plant, whose dynamite was used later by the Boatmen of Thessaloniki. After the assassination of the Romanian newspaper editor Ștefan Mihăileanu in July, who had published unflattering remarks about the Macedonian affairs, Bulgaria and Romania were brought to the brink of war. At that time Delchev was preparing to organize a detachment which, in a possible war to support the Bulgarian army by its actions in Northern Dobruja, where a compact Bulgarian population was available. From 1901 to 1902, he made an important inspection in Macedonia, touring all revolutionary districts there. He also led the congress of the Adrianople revolutionary district held in Plovdiv in April 1902. Afterwards Delchev inspected IMRO's structures in the Central Rhodopes. The inclusion of the rural areas into the organizational districts contributed to the expansion of the Organization and the increase in its membership, while providing the essential prerequisites for the formation of its military power, at the same time having Delchev as its military advisor (inspector) and chief of all internal revolutionary bands.
After 1897 there was a rapid growth of secret officers' brotherhoods, whose members by 1900 numbered about a thousand. Much of the brotherhoods' activists were involved in the revolutionary activity of the IMRO. He was among the main supporters of their activities. Delchev aimed also for better coordination between IMRO and the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee. For a short time in the late 1890s Bulgarian lieutenant Boris Sarafov, who was a former schoolmate of Delchev became its leader, as he was promoted as a candidate by him and Petrov. IMRO delegates Delchev and Petrov became by rights members of the leadership of the Supreme Committee in May 1899 and so the IMRO even managed to gain de facto control of the SMAC. Until 1901, the two organizations had close cooperation. General Ivan Tsonchev and other fellow officers organized a faction against Delchev and Petrov. The relations between IMRO and SMAC deteriorated and in March 1901, he and Petrov sent a circular to local committee leaders of the internal organizations, denouncing the attempt of SMAC to seize the direction of IMRO. They ordered the termination of all relations with it, as well as ordered all local committees to refuse any transition of any armed group which did not have a pass signed by him or Petrov, and their weapons to be seized.
The primary question regarding the timing of the uprising in Macedonia and Thrace implicated an apparent discordance not only between the SMAC and SMARO, but also among SMARO's leadership. At the Thessaloniki Congress of January 1903, where Delchev did not participate, an early uprising was debated and it was decided to stage one in May 1903. This led to fierce debates among the representatives at the Sofia SMARO's Conference in March 1903. By that time two strong tendencies had crystallized within the SMARO. The right-wing majority was convinced that if the Organization would unleash a general uprising, Bulgaria would be provoked to declare war on the Ottoman Empire and after the subsequent intervention of the Great Powers the Ottoman Empire would collapse. Delchev opposed the plan for a mass uprising, instead supporting terrorist tactics and guerilla tactics such as the Thessaloniki bombings of 1903. Finally, he had no choice but to agree to that course of action, at least managing to delay its start from May to August. Delchev also convinced the SMARO leadership to transform its idea of a mass rising involving the civil population into a rising based on guerrilla warfare. Towards the end of March 1903, Delchev with his detachment destroyed the railway bridge over the Angista river, aiming to test the new guerrilla tactics. Following that he set out for Thessaloniki to meet with Dame Gruev after his release from prison in March 1903. Delchev met with Gruev in late April, and they discussed the decision of starting the uprising. Delchev hoped that Gruev will argue for postponement of the uprising, but he wanted it to proceed. After the meeting, he left for Serres, with the intention of holding a regional congress to lay out his plans for the uprising.
On 28 April, the Bulgarian anarchist group Boatmen of Thessaloniki started terrorist attacks in the city. As a consequence martial law was declared in the city and many Ottoman soldiers and "bashibozouks" were concentrated in the Salonika vilayet. This increased tension led eventually to the tracking of Delchev's cheta and his subsequent death. Delchev and his cheta arrived in the village of Banitsa on 2 May for a meeting with Dimo Hadzhidimov, soon after a skirmish followed in which he was killed on 4 May 1903, with a shot to the chest, by Ottoman troops led by his former schoolmate Hussein Tefikov. It occurred presumably after betrayal by local villagers, as rumors asserted. Thus the Macedonian liberation movement lost its most important organizer and ideologist, on the eve of the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising. He was recognized as "the most capable and most honest Komitadji" by missionaries. After being identified by the local authorities in Serres, the bodies of Delchev and his comrade, Dimitar Gushtanov, were buried in a common grave in Banitsa. Following the skirmish, more than 500 arrests were made in various districts of Serres and 1,700 households petitioned to return to the Patriarchate. Soon afterwards SMARO, aided by SMAC, organized the uprising against the Ottoman Empire, which after initial successes, was defeated with many casualties. Two of his brothers, Mitso and Milan were also killed fighting against the Ottomans as militants in the SMARO chetas of the Bulgarian voivodas Hristo Chernopeev and Krstjo Asenov in 1901 and 1903, respectively. The Bulgarian government later granted a pension to their father Nikola, because of the contribution of his sons to the freedom of Macedonia. During the Second Balkan War of 1913, Kilkis, which had been annexed by Bulgaria in the First Balkan War, was taken by the Greeks. Virtually all of its pre-war 7,000 Bulgarian inhabitants, including Delchev's family, were expelled to Bulgaria by the Greek Army. During Balkan Wars, when Bulgaria was temporarily in control of the area, Delchev's remains were transferred to Xanthi, then in Bulgaria. After Western Thrace was ceded to Greece in 1919, the relic was brought to Plovdiv and in 1923 to Sofia, where it rested until after World War II. During World War II, the area was taken by the Kingdom of Bulgaria again and Delchev's grave near Banitsa was restored. In May 1943, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of his death, a memorial plaque was set in Banitsa, in the presence of his sisters and other public figures.
The first biographical book about Delchev was issued in 1904 by his friend and comrade in arms, the Bulgarian poet Peyo Yavorov. The most detailed biography of Delchev in English was written by English historian Mercia MacDermott called Freedom or Death: The Life of Gotse Delchev, published in 1978 and translated into Bulgarian in 1979.
The international, cosmopolitan views of Delchev could be summarized in his proverbial sentence: "I understand the world solely as a field for cultural competition among the peoples". Per MacDermott, his saying presupposes a world without political and economic conflicts and one which has a very high degree of mutual friendship and co-operation on an international level. In the late 19th century the anarchists and socialists from Bulgaria linked their struggle closely with the revolutionary movements in Macedonia and Thrace. Thus, as a young cadet in Sofia Delchev became a member of a left-wing circle, where he was influenced by modern Marxist and Bakunin's ideas. His views were formed also under the influence of the ideas of earlier anti-Ottoman fighters as Levski, Botev, and Stoyanov, who were among the founders of the Bulgarian Internal Revolutionary Organization, the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee and the Bulgarian Secret Central Revolutionary Committee, respectively. Later he participated in the Internal Organization's struggle as a well-educated leader.
According to Mercia MacDermott, he was the co-author of BMARC's statute. Developing his ideas further in 1902 he took the step, together with other left-wing functionaries, of changing its nationalistic character, which determined that members of the organization could be only Bulgarians. The new supra-nationalistic statute renamed it to Secret Macedono-Adrianopolitan Revolutionary Organization (SMARO), which was to be an insurgent organization, open to all Macedonians and Thracians regardless of nationality, who wished to participate in the movement for their autonomy. This scenario was partially facilitated by the Treaty of Berlin (1878), according to which Macedonia and Adrianople areas were given back from Bulgaria to the Ottomans, but especially by its unrealized 23rd. article, which promised future autonomy for unspecified territories in European Turkey, settled with Christian population. His main goal, along with the other revolutionaries, was the implementation of Article 23 of the treaty, aimed at acquiring full autonomy of Macedonia and the Adrianople. Delchev, like other left-wing activists, vaguely determined the bonds in the future common Macedonian-Adrianople autonomous region on the one hand, and on the other between it, the Principality of Bulgaria, and de facto annexed Eastern Rumelia. Even the possibility that Bulgaria could be absorbed into a future autonomous Macedonia, rather than the reverse, was discussed. Per Bulgarian academic sources and his contemporaries, Delchev supported Macedonia's eventual incorporation into Bulgaria, or its inclusion into a future Balkan Confederative Republic. According to American historian Dennis P. Hupchick, he firmly opposed Macedonia's incorporation into Bulgaria. Despite his Bulgarian loyalty, he was against any chauvinistic propaganda and nationalist disputes. For militants such as Delchev and other leftists that participated in the national movement retaining a political outlook, national liberation meant "radical political liberation through shaking off the social shackles". According to researcher James Horncastle, he believed that revolutionary terror was necessary to create an autonomous Macedonia. Per Delchev, no outside force could or would help the Organization and it ought to rely only upon itself and only upon its own will and strength. He thought that any intervention by Bulgaria would provoke intervention by the neighboring states as well and could result in Macedonia and Thrace being torn apart. That is why the peoples of these two regions had to win their own freedom and independence, within the frontiers of an autonomous Macedonian-Adrianople state.
In 1934 the Comintern gave its support to the idea that the Macedonian Slavs constituted a separate nation. Prior to World War II, this view on the Macedonian issue had been of little practical importance. However, during the war these ideas were supported by the pro-Yugoslav Macedonian communist partisans, who strengthened their positions in 1943, referring to the ideals of Gotse Delchev. After the Red Army entered the Balkans in late 1944, new communist regimes came into power in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. In this way their policy on the Macedonian Question was committed to the Comintern policy of supporting the development of a distinct ethnic Macedonian consciousness. The region of Macedonia was proclaimed as the connecting link for the establishment of a future Balkan Communist Federation. The newly established Yugoslav People's Republic of Macedonia, was characterized as the natural result of Delchev's aspirations for autonomous Macedonia.
Initially, the Macedonian communists questioned the extent of Delchev's alleged Macedonian national consciousness. Macedonian communist leader Lazar Koliševski proclaimed him as "...one Bulgarian of no significance for the liberation struggles...". In 1946, communist activist Vasil Ivanovski acknowledged that Delchev did not have a clear view of a "Macedonian national character", but stated that his struggle made the free and autonomous Macedonia a possibility. On 7 October 1946, under pressure from Moscow, as part of the policy to foster the development of Macedonian national consciousness, Delchev's remains were transported to Skopje. On 10 October, the bones were enshrined in a marble sarcophagus in the yard of the church "Sveti Spas", where they have remained since.
Delchev's name became part of the anthem of SR Macedonia - Today over Macedonia. According to Mishe Karev, a nephew of Nikola Karev, after the Tito–Stalin split in 1948, the Macedonian communist elite discussed the idea of scrapping Delchev's name from the anthem of the country and proclaiming him a Bulgarian, but this idea was declined. Two towns were named in his honor: Delčevo in SR Macedonia in 1950 and Gotse Delchev in Bulgaria in 1951.
After realizing that the Balkan collective memory had already accepted the heroes of the Macedonian revolutionary movement as Bulgarians, Macedonian communist authorities exerted efforts to claim Delchev for the Macedonian national cause. Aiming to enforce the belief that Delchev was an ethnic Macedonian, all documents written by him in standard Bulgarian were translated into standard Macedonian and presented as originals. As a result, Delchev was declared an ethnic Macedonian hero and Macedonian school textbooks began even to hint at Bulgarian complicity in his death. In the People's Republic of Bulgaria, before 1960, Delchev was given mostly regional recognition in Pirin Macedonia. Afterwards, orders from the highest political level were given to reincorporate the Macedonian revolutionary movement as part of the Bulgarian historiography and to prove the Bulgarian credentials of its historical leaders. Since 1960, there have been long unproductive debates between the ruling Communist parties in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia about the ethnic affiliation of Delchev. Delchev was described in SR Macedonia not only as an anti-Ottoman freedom fighter, but also as a hero, who had opposed the aggressive aspirations of the pro-Bulgarian factions in the liberation movement. The claims on Delchev's Bulgarian self-identification, thus were portrayed as a recent Bulgarian chauvinist attitude of long provenance. Nonetheless, the Bulgarian side made in 1978 for the first time the proposal that some historical personalities (e.g. Gotse Delchev) could be regarded as belonging to the shared historical heritage of the two peoples, but that proposal did not appeal to the Yugoslavs.
Delchev is regarded in Bulgaria and North Macedonia as a national hero. His ethnic identity has continued to be disputed in North Macedonia, serving as a point of contention with Bulgaria. Some attempts were made for the joint celebration of Delchev between both countries. Bulgarian diplomats were also attacked when honoring Delchev by Macedonian nationalists in 2012. On 2 August 2017, the Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and his Macedonian colleague Zoran Zaev placed wreaths at the grave of Delchev on the occasion of the 114th anniversary of the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising. Zaev expressed an interest to negotiate about Delchev. A joint commission on historical issues was also formed in 2018 to resolve controversial historical readings, including the dispute about Delchev's ethnic identity, which has been unresolved. The Association of Historians in North Macedonia came out against the calls for a joint celebration of Delchev, seeing them as a threat to Macedonian national identity. Per Macedonian historian Dragi Gjorgiev, the myth of Delchev is so significant among ethnic Macedonians that it is more important than documents, books, and pieces written by historians. Macedonian philosopher Katerina Kolozova opined that Bulgaria should not negotiate regarding his self-identification, seeing him as important for the national myths of Bulgaria and North Macedonia. Per anthropologist Keith Brown and political scientist Alexis Heraclides, the identity of Delchev and other IMRO figures is "open to different interpretations", that are incompatible with the views of modern Balkan nationalisms.
His memory is honored especially in the Bulgarian part of Macedonia and among the descendants of Bulgarian refugees from other parts of the region, where he has been regarded as one of the greatest revolutionary leaders. There are two peaks named after Delchev: Gotsev Vrah, the summit of Slavyanka Mountain, and Delchev Vrah or Delchev Peak on Livingston Island, South Shetland Islands in Antarctica, which was named after him by the scientists from the Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition. The Goce Delčev University of Štip in North Macedonia carries his name too. Many artifacts related to Delchev's activity are stored in different museums across Bulgaria and North Macedonia. During the time of SFR Yugoslavia, a street in Belgrade was named after Delchev. In 2015, Serbian nationalists covered the signs with the street's name and affixed new ones with the name of the Chetnik activist Kosta Pećanac. They claimed that Delchev was a Bulgarian and his name has no place there. Though in 2016 the street's name was changed officially by the municipal authorities to "Maršal Tolbuhin". Their motivation was that Delchev was not an ethnic Macedonian revolutionary, but a leader of an anti-Serbian organization with a pro-Bulgarian orientation. In Greece the official appeals from the Bulgarian side to the authorities to install a memorial plaque on his place of death are not answered. The memorial plaques set periodically by Bulgarians afterwards have been removed. Bulgarian tourists have been restrained occasionally from visiting the place.
On 4 February 2023, on the 151st anniversary of the birth of the revolutionary, both the Macedonian and Bulgarian side paid their respects at the St. Spas Church in Skopje separately, while the delegation of North Macedonia declined the offer to jointly lay wreaths proposed by the Bulgarian delegation. Many Bulgarian citizens who wanted to attend the event were held for hours at the border due to a claimed malfunction of the border system. However, problems with the admission of the Bulgarians continued even after the processing of their documents. As a result, many Bulgarian citizens and journalists were prevented from crossing. Three citizens were detained, fined and banned from entering the country for 3 years, due to attempting to physically assault policemen. According to their lawyer, two of them were apparently beaten. Bulgaria officially reacted sharply to these events.