page_title: Yane Sandanski
section_title: Controversy
hierarchical_section_title: Yane Sandanski / Controversy
caption_attribution_description: English: Manifest of NFP/bulgarian section/ "to all the ethnic groups of the Empire" Български: Манифест на НФП/българска секция/
context_page_description: Yane Ivanov Sandanski, was a Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary. He is recognized as a national hero in both Bulgaria and North Macedonia.
  In his youth Sandanski was interested in Bulgarian politics and had a career as governor of the local prison in Dupnitsa. Then he was involved in the anti-Ottoman struggle, joining initially the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee, but later switched to the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organisation. Sandanski became one of the leaders of the IMARO in the Serres revolutionary district and head of the left wing of the organisation. He supported the idea of a Balkan Federation, and Macedonia as an autonomous state within its framework, as an ultimate solution of the national problems in the area. During the Second Constitutional Era he became an Ottoman politician and entrepreneur, collaborating with the Young Turks and founded the Bulgarian People's Federative Party. Sandanski took up arms on the side of Bulgaria during the Balkan Wars. Finally he was involved in Bulgarian public life again, but was eventually killed by the rivalling IMARO right-wing faction activists.
context_section_description: The Macedonian liberation movement consisted of three major factions. Led by his excessive ambitions, Sandanski came into conflict with the majority — the Centralists in IMARO and the Varhovists. Although initially a member of the Bulgarian nationalistic Varhovists band, later Yane Sandanski and his Serres group (the Federalists) proclaimed a fight for an autonomous Macedonia which was to be included in a Balkan Socialist Federation. In this manner, the policy of Sofia was completely identified to the adversary character of Athens and Belgrade. The activists of Serres nonetheless stipulated that the Macedonian Question could not be resolved if it is formulated as a part of a Bulgarian national question.  After the Ilinden Uprising, this Group insisted on cooperation with all ethnic and religious groups in the Ottoman Empire and envisioned the inclusion of Macedonia and the district of Adrianople in a Balkan Federation. However the idea of Macedonian autonomy was strictly political and did not imply a secession from Bulgarian ethnicity, even as it was seen at a later stage of the struggle by the group around Sandanski, that espoused a number of classical liberal ideas intermingled with socialism, imported from Bulgaria.
  On the other hand, the bigger fraction (the Centralists), as well as that of the other revolutionary organization - Macedonian Supreme Committee - Varhovists, (most of which followers joined the "Centralists", after its dissolution in 1903) aimed also at autonomy. But they did not expected inclusion in a Balkan Socialist Federation and had not so extreme policy by their relation to Sofia. These political differences led to sharp conflict between them.
  Arguably Sandanski's greatest sin in the context of the whole movement were the assassinations of the vojvod Michail Daev and later of Ivan Garvanov and Boris Sarafov, both members of the IMARO's Central Committee. He came to regret these and other murders later. Because of that he was even sentenced to death by the Centralists. The Bulgarian authorities investigated the assassinations and suspected Sandanski was the main force behind them. On the other hand, he was amnestied by the Bulgarian Parliament after the support he gave to the Bulgarian Army during the Balkan wars. 
  There was, a long history of friction between the Bulgarian Exarchate and the Organization, since those more closely connected with the Exarchate were moderates rather than revolutionaries. Thus the two bodies had never been able to see eye to eye on a number of important issues touching the  population in Thrace and Macedonia. In his regular reports to the Exarch, the Bulgarian bishop in Melnik usually referred to Yane as the wild beast and deliberately spelt his name without capital letters. Despite being an extreme leftist, 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. Sandanski also collaborated later with the Young Turks, opposing other factions of IMARO, which fought against the Ottoman authorities in this period.
  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. The loyalty to the Empire declared by Sandanski deliberately blurred the distinction between Macedonian and Ottoman political agenda. This ideological transition was quite smooth as long as the rhetoric of Macedonian autonomist supra-nationalism was already quite close to the Ottomanist idea of the so-called unity of the elements. During the honeymoon of Serres revolutionaries and Ottoman authorities, it was the internationalist ideas of Bulgarian socialist activists that left their stamp on 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. After Bulgaria lost the Balkan Wars and as result most of Macedonia was ceded to Greece and Serbia, Sandansk
caption: The manifesto proclaimed by Yane Sandanski at the beginning of the Young Turk Revolution
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