TheKruševo Republic (Bulgarian andMacedonian: Крушевска Република,Kruševska Republika;Aromanian:Republica di Crushuva)[2] was a short-lived political entity, proclaimed in 1903 by rebels from theInternal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) inKruševo during the anti-OttomanIlinden Uprising.[3] According to Bulgarian and Macedonian historical narratives, in the town, which was inhabited by different Christian populations, an ephemeral "republic" with a temporary revolutionary government was proclaimed.[4] It is viewed as a historical predecessor inNorth Macedonia.[5][6][7][8]
In the early 20th century, Kruševo was mainly inhabited bySlavic Macedonian,Aromanian and OrthodoxAlbanian population.[7] As a result of the national and religious propaganda the population was ethnoreligiously split onBulgarian Exarchists andGreek Patriarchists, the latter constituted the largest ethno-religious community.[9][10]
On 3 August 1903,IMRO insurgents captured the town of Kruševo in theManastir Vilayet of theOttoman Empire (present-dayNorth Macedonia), After the General Staff of the Uprising headed byDame Gruev andBoris Sarafov entered the city on 4 August, the Krusevo Republic was proclaimed in a speech by Nikola Karev who was elected as president.[7][11][12][13][14] He was a strong socialist and member of theMacedonian-Adrianople Social Democratic Group, favouring alliances with ordinary Muslims against the Sultanate, as well as supporting the idea of a Macedonian republic inside aBalkan Federation and opposing the territorial aspirations of the neighbouring Balkan countries over the region.[15][16]
The President of the Kruševo Republic Nikola Karev
Amongst the variousethnoreligious groups (millets) in Kruševo, a Republican Council was elected with 60 members – 20 representatives from three groups: Aromanians,Macedono-Bulgarians and Greek self-identifying (Grecoman)Slavic Macedonians, Aromanians and Albanians.[7][17][18][19][20] The Council also elected an executive body – the Provisional Government – with six members (2 from each mentioned group),[21] whose duty was to promote law and order and manage supplies, finances, and medical care. The presumable "Kruševo Manifesto" was published in the first days after the proclamation.[22][23] Written byNikola Kirov, it outlined the goals of the uprising, calling upon the Muslim population and the Christians alike to join forces with the provisional government in the struggle against Ottoman tyranny, to attain freedom and independence for Macedonia.[24][25][26][27] Kirov was also a leftist like Karev and a member of theBulgarian Workers' Social Democratic Party.[28] However, Karev allegedly called all the members of the local Council "brother Bulgarians", while the IMRO insurgents flew Bulgarian flags, killed five Greek Patriarchists accused of being Ottoman spies, and subsequently assaulted the local Turk and Albanian Muslims.[29][30][31] Greek sources witness that the insurgents were aggressive or provocative towards the Patriarchist population.[32] Karev attempted to reduce attacks over the Muslim population and prevent the plundering from insurgents and their supporters.[33] He also attended a Greek church service in a gesture of tolerance and unity.[34] However, except forExarchist Aromanians,[35] who wereBulgarophiles,[36][37] (asPitu Guli and his family), most members of the otherethnoreligious communities dismissed the IMRO as pro-Bulgarian.[38][39]
Initially surprised by the uprising, the Ottoman government took extraordinary military measures to suppress it. Heading fromPrilep, led by Bahtiyar Paşa, a force of 15,000 infantry, cavalry and artillery, aided bybashi-bazouks, surrounded the city on 12 August. Pitu Guli's band (cheta) tried to defend the town and republic from the Ottoman troops, after a fiercebattle near Mečkin Kamen most of the band and their leader (voivode) perished.[7] Another one calledbattle of Sliva took place at the same time, ending in defeat as well. On 13 August the Ottomans managed to destroy the Kruševo Republic, committing atrocities against the Aromanian and Patriarchist population.[12] As a result of the gunnery, the town was set partially ablaze.[40] After the plundering of the town by the Turkish troops and the Albanian bashi-bazouks, the Ottoman authorities circulated a declaration for the inhabitants of Kruševo to sign, stating that the Bulgariankomitadjis had committed the atrocities and looted the town. A few citizens did sign it under administrative pressure.[41]
Homeless inhabitants of Kruševo in front of the ruins of the town. Regarding the escape of theBulgarian quarter (Slavic area)[42] from destruction, a bribery was suspected,[31][40] or the fear of an explosion of the ammunition stored there.[43]
The celebration of the events in Kruševo began during theFirst World War, when the area, then calledSouthern Serbia, wasoccupied by Bulgaria.Naum Tomalevski, who was appointed a mayor of Kruševo, organized the nationwide celebration of the 15th anniversary of the Ilinden uprising.[44] On the place of theBattle of Mečkin Kamen, a monument and a memorial-fountain were built. After the war, they were destroyed by the Serbian authorities, which continued implementing a policy of forcibleSerbianization. The tradition of celebrating these events was restored duringWorld War II in the region, when it was occupied by Bulgaria again.[45]
On the other hand, during World War II, theMacedonian communist partisans developed the idea of historical continuity between their struggle and that of the insurgents of the Ilinden Uprising and Kruševo Republic. The partisan leaders and detachments chose names of heroes from IMRO, one such wasKuzman Josifovski Pitu, named afterPitu Guli.[46] The Kruševo Republic was referred to in the lyrics of the partisan song "Today over Macedonia", later to become the Macedonian anthem. After the war, the idea of socialist continuity proceeded in the newly establishedSocialist Republic of Macedonia, where the Kruševo Republic was considered as its antecedent.[47] Furthermore, Macedonian historians often compared it to theParis Commune, the classic symbol ofrevolutionary socialism. It was emphasized how the Council and commissionerships were evenly split between the nationalities, in a style bound to serve as an example to the Balkans in a similar manner how the Paris Commune served for the world.[48] Another instance firmly praised was thelast stand of Pitu Guli and his man in thebattle of Meckin Kamen, which achieved an iconic status in the Macedonian national history.[49] The "Ilinden Uprising Museum" was founded in 1953 on the 50th anniversary of the Kruševo Republic in the former house of theTomalevski family where the Republic was proclaimed. In 1974 an enormous monument, known asMakedonium, was built on the hill above Kruševo, which marked the feat of the revolutionaries and theASNOM. In the area, there is another monument called Mečkin Kamen commemorating the battle that took place there.[50]
During theInformbiro period, the name of insurgents' leaderNikola Karev was scrapped from theMacedonian national anthem.[51] He and his brothers were suspected of beingBulgarophiles.[52]Nikola Kirov's writings, which are among the most known primary sources on the rebellion, mention Bulgarians, Vlachs (Aromanians), and Greeks (sic:Grecomans), who participated in the events in Kruševo.[53] Although post-World War II Macedonian historians objected to Kirov's classification of Kruševo's Slavic population as Bulgarian, they quickly adopted everything else in his narrative of the events in 1903 as definitive.[54] As a result of the Greek and Bulgarian challenges against the Macedonian identity, Macedonian historians enforced their efforts to prove that IMRO activists had been exclusively Macedonian in identity.[55] The entity is seen as a prelude to its statehood by North Macedonia.[56] Some modernMacedonian historians such asBlaže Ristovski have recognized, that the entity, nowadays a symbol of the Macedonian statehood, was composed of people who identified themselves as "Greeks", "Vlachs" (Aromanians), and "Bulgarians".[57][58] The legacy of therepublic is disputed between Bulgaria and North Macedonia.[59] When the anthropologist Keith Brown visited Kruševo on the eve of the 21st century, he discovered that the localAromanian language still has no way to distinguish "Macedonian" and "Bulgarian", and uses the designationVrgari, i.e. "Bulgarians", for both ethnic groups.[53] The same has been confirmed by the Greek researcher Asterios Koukoudis.[60] Some authors maintain it was an independentsocialist republic, the first in theBalkans.[7][61][need quotation to verify]
The Tomalevski family house where the Republic was proclaimed. The family later emigrated to Bulgaria. In modern day the "Museum of History Kruševo" is located in the house.
^Nadège Ragaru (2023) Bulgaria, the Jews, and the Holocaust. On the Origins of a Heroic Narrative, University of Rochester Press,ISBN9781648250705, p. 290.
^Marco Dogo; Stefano Bianchini, eds. (1998).The Balkans: National Identities in a Historical Perspective. Longo. p. 121.ISBN8880631764.In liberated Krushevo, the rebel government established itself as a republic, to be remembered in historiography and collective memory as the Krushevo Republic. The Republic, the first of its kind on the Balkans, represented a model of statehood for all of Macedonia and an expression of the revolutionary ideology of TMORO: the "Macedonian Independent Republic" would provide real freedom for the Macedonian people, including minorities, independence, economic, political, cultural and social development.
^John Paul Newman; Balázs Apor, eds. (2021).Balkan Legacies: The Long Shadow of Conflict and Ideological Experiment in Southeastern Europe. Purdue University Press. p. 268.ISBN978-1612496696.The Ilinden Uprising against the Turkish rule in 1903 was one of the most important events in the history of Macedonian people. During the uprising, in the small town of Krusevo the first republic in the Balkans was created. Even though it lasted just for ten days, it had a great impact on the Macedonian liberation movement, especially during World War II and the creation of the Macedonian state as a part of the Yugoslav federation in 1944, as well as on the international community, which was alerted for the existence of the Macedonian people.
^abcdefStoyan Pribichevich (1982).Macedonia, Its People and History. Pennsylvania State University Press. p. 128-129.ISBN0271003154.
^Alexis Heraclides (2021).The Macedonian Question and the Macedonians: A History. Routledge. p. 44.ISBN9780367218263.
^Kirov-Majski wrote on the history of the IMRO and authored in 1923 the play "Ilinden" in the dialect of his native town (Kruševo). The play is the only direct source containing the Kruševo Manifesto, the rebels' programmatic address to the neighbouring Muslim villages, which is regularly quoted by modern Macedonian history and textbooks. Dimitar Bechev Historical Dictionary of North Macedonia, Rowman & Littlefield, 2019,ISBN1538119625, p. 166.
^Keith Brown, The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation, Princeton University Press, 2003,ISBN0-691-09995-2, p. 230.
^Loring M. Danforth (1997).The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World. Princeton University Press. p. 51.ISBN0691043566.
^Alexander Maxwell (2007). "Krsté Misirkov's 1903 Call for Macedonian Autocephaly: Religious Nationalism as Instrumental Political Tactic".Studia Theologica.5 (3): 163.
^Aromanian consciousness was not developed until the late 19th century, and was influenced by the rise of Romanian national movement. As result, wealthy, urbanized Ottoman Vlachs were culturally hellenised during 17–19th century and some of them bulgarized during the late 19th and early 20th. century. Raymond Detrez, 2014, Historical Dictionary of Bulgaria, Rowman & Littlefield,ISBN1442241802, p. 520.
^Коста Църнушанов, Македонизмът и съпротивата на Македония срещу него, Университетско изд. "Св. Климент Охридски", София, 1992, стр. 132.
^Dimitar Bechev Historical Dictionary of North Macedonia, Rowman & Littlefield, 2019,ISBN1538119625, p. 124.
^Dragi Ǵorǵiev, Lili Blagaduša, Documents Turcs sur l'insurrection de St. Élie provenants du fonds d'archives du Sultan "Yild'z", Arhiv na Makedonija, 1997, p. 131.
^Цочо В. Билярски, Из рапортите на Наум Томалевски до ЦК на ВМРО за мисията му в Западна Европа; В „Иван Михайлов в обектива на полиция, дипломация, разузнаване и преса“, Университетско издателство "Св. Климент Охридски", 2006,ISBN9789549384079.
^ James Krapfl, "The Ideals of Ilinden: Uses of Memory and Nationalism in Socialist Macedonia" in John S. Migel, (ed.), State and Nation Building in East Central Europe: Contemporary Perspectives, Institute on East Central Europe, Columbia University, 1996,ISBN096545200X, pp. 297-316
^Keith Brown (2013).Loyal Unto Death: Trust and Terror in Revolutionary Macedonia. Indiana University Press. p. 142.ISBN9780253008473.
^Eltion Meka; Stefano Bianchini, eds. (2020).The Challenges of Democratization and Reconciliation in the Post-Yugoslav Space. Nomos. p. 50.ISBN9783848769049.
^"Беше наполно прав и Мисирков во своjата фундаментална критика за Востанието и неговите раководители. Неговите укажуваньа се покажаа наполно точни во послешната практика. На пр., во ослободеното Крушево се формира градска управа составена од "Бугари", Власи и Гркомани, па во зачуваните писмени акти не фигурираат токму Македонци(!)..." Блаже Ристовски, "Столетиjа на македонската свест", Скопје, Култура, 2001, стр. 458.
^"We, the People: Politics of National Peculiarity in Southeastern Europe" Diana Mishkova, Central European University Press, 2009,ISBN9639776289, p. 124.
^Aarbakke Vemund (2011). Images of imperial legacy: The impact of nationalizing discourse on the image of the last years of Ottoman rule in Macedonia. Images of Imperial Legacy, Modern Discourses on the social and cultural impact of Ottoman and Habsburg rule in Southeast Europe. Επιμέλεια:Tea Sindbæk, Maxmilian Hartmuth. p.115-128.
^Asterios I. Koukoudēs (2003) The Vlachs. Metropolis and Diaspora. Zitros,ISBN9789607760869, p. 33.
^Lauren S. Bahr, ed. (1997).Collier's Encyclopedia: With Bibliography and Index. Collier's. p. 160.LCCN96084127.
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