page_title: Metodija Andonov-Čento
section_title: World War II in Yugoslav Macedonia
hierarchical_section_title: Metodija Andonov-Čento / World War II in Yugoslav Macedonia
caption_attribution_description: English: Metodija Andonov-Čento with his wife Vasilka, his sons Ilija, Andon and Vladimir and his daughter Marija Македонски: Методија Андонов-Ченто со сопругата Василка, синовите Илија, Андон и Владимир и ќерката Марија, во Прилеп, еден ден пред излегување во партизани
context_page_description: Metodija Andonov-Čento was a Macedonian statesman, the first president of the Anti-Fascist Assembly of the National Liberation of Macedonia and of the People's Republic of Macedonia in the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia after the Second World War. In Bulgaria he is often considered a Bulgarian.
context_section_description: In April 1941, when the Bulgarian Army entered the area, it was greeted as alleged liberator from Serbian rule, while pro-Bulgarian feelings still prevailed among the local population. During the early stages of Bulgarian annexation of most of the Vardar Macedonia, Čento was set free from the Yugoslav prison and came in contact with the right-wing  Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) activists and pro-Bulgarian political forces. The Macedonian communists also fell in the sphere of influence of the Bulgarian Communist Party under Metodi Shatorov's leadership, with whom Čento was also in close contact. However, when in June the USSR was attacked by Nazi Germany, the Comintern issued a supreme decision that the Macedonian Communists must be re-attached to the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Meanwhile, the Bulgarian authorities staffed the new province with corrupted officials from Bulgaria proper and soon began to lose the public confidence. Although he received at that time an invitation to collaborate with the new administration Čento refused, considering that idea unpromising and insisting on independence. In 1942 Čento began to sympathize with the resistance and his store was used as a front for the Macedonian communists, which prompted Bulgarian authorities to arrest him. For this reason by the end of 1942 he was interned in the inland of the country and later sent to a  labor camp. Meanwhile, although several partisan detachments were formed through the end of 1942 and despite Sofia's ill-managed administration, most Macedonian Communists had yet to be lured to Yugoslavia.
  In 1943 the Yugoslav communists changed the course and proclaimed as their aim the issue of unification of the region of Macedonia, and so managed to get also the Macedonian nationalists. Upon his release in the fall of 1943, Cento met Kuzman Josifovski, a member of the General Staff of the Partisan units of Macedonia, who convinced him to join them. As result Čento moved to the German occupation zone of Vardar Macedonia, then part of Albania, where he became a member of the General Staff of the resistance. Until the spring of 1944 the Macedonian partisan activity was concentrated in this part of then Albanian territory. As the most authoritative figure in December 1943, Andonov-Chento was elected to chair the ASNOM Convening Committee. In June 1944, he, Emanuel Čućkov and Kiril Petrušev left for island of Vis  to meet with the People's Liberation Committee of Yugoslavia headed by Josip Broz Tito. The meeting was held on June 24, with the Macedonian delegation raising the issue of United Macedonia after the German retreat. In August 1944, he was elected as President of Anti-Fascist Assembly of the National Liberation of Macedonia. At his initiative, at its first meeting were invited former IMRO activists, related to the Bulgarian Action Committees, who he wanted to associate to the administration of the future state. In September however, Nazi Germany briefly sought to establish a puppet state called Independent State of Macedonia, where they participated.
  Čento's goal was to create a fully independent United Macedonian state, but after by mid-November 1944 the Partisans had established military and administrative control of the region, it became clear that Macedonia should be constituent republic within the new SFR Yugoslavia. Čento saw this as a second period of Serbian dominance in Macedonia and insisted on independence for the republic from the federal Yugoslav authorities. In this way, he clashed with Svetozar Vukmanović-Tempo, Josip Broz Tito’s envoy to Macedonia and Lazar Koliševski, the leader of the ruling Communist Party of Macedonia.
caption: Čento with his family.
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