Yane Sandanski - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Yane Ivanov Sandanski or Jane Ivanov Sandanski, ' onMouseout='HidePop("44478")' href="/topics/Ottoman_Empire">Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

, present-day Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

- April 22, 1915, near Melnik, Bulgaria

Melnik, Bulgaria

Melnik is a town in Blagoevgrad Province, southwestern Bulgaria, in the southwestern Pirin Mountains, about 440 m above sea level. The town is an architectural reserve and 96 of its buildings are cultural monuments...

) was a revolutionary, one of the leaders of the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (IMARO) in the Serres

Serres

Serres is a city in Greece, seat of the Serres prefecture.Serres may also refer to:Places:* Serres, Germany, a part of Wiernsheim in Baden-WürttembergIn France:* Serres, Aude in the Aude département...

region and head of the extreme leftist wing of the organization. He considered himself and is considered an ethnic Bulgarian

Bulgarians

The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...

in Bulgaria and abroad but is regarded as an ethnic Macedonian

Macedonians (ethnic group)

The Macedonians also referred to as Macedonian Slavs: "... the term Slavomacedonian was introduced and was accepted by the community itself, which at the time had a much more widespread non-Greek Macedonian ethnic consciousness...

in the Republic of Macedonia

Republic of Macedonia

Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...

. The Bulgarianness of Sandanski is recognized by several Macedonian historians like Academician

Academician

The title Academician denotes a Full Member of an art, literary, or scientific academy.In many countries, it is an honorary title. There also exists a lower-rank title, variously translated Corresponding Member or Associate Member, .-Eastern Europe and China:"Academician" may also be a functional...

Ivan Katardzhiev, director of the Historical Sciences section in the Department

Academic department

An academic department is a division of a university or school faculty devoted to a particular academic discipline. This article covers United States usage at the university level....

of Social Sciences

Social sciences

Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...

in the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts

The Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts is the most eminent academic institution in the Republic of Macedonia.-History:The Academy of Sciences and Arts was established by the Macedonian Assembly on 22 February 1967 as the highest scientific, scholarly and artistic institution in the country...

and the director of the Macedonian State archive Ph. D. Zoran Todorovski.

Biography

Sandanski was born in the Bulgarian-populated village of Vlahi near Kresna

Kresna

Kresna is a town and municipality in Blagoevgrad Province in Bulgaria.It is located in the southwestern part of Bulgaria.-Geography:The town of Kresna lies at the north end of the Kresna Gorge of the Struma River at the foot of Pirin mountain. The Melo hills are striking sandstone formations...

in Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

on May 28, 1872. His father Ivan participated as a flag carrier in the Kresna-Razlog Uprising

Kresna-Razlog Uprising

The Kresna-Razlog Uprising was a Bulgarian uprising against the Ottoman rule, predominantly in the areas of Kresna and Razlog in the region of Pirin Macedonia in late 1878 and early 1879...

. After the crush of the uprising, in 1879 his family moved to Dupnitsa, Bulgarian, where Sandanski received his elementary education. Until 1895 Sandanski was a Bulgarian state employee.
Yane Sandanski was involved in the Revolutionary Movement in Macedonia and Thrace

Thrace

Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...

and became one of its leaders. Since the start of his revolutionary activity, he gained popularity because he protected the local villagers in Pirin Macedonia from the tyranny of the Ottomans, organizing courts and taught self-defence. Sandanski lived and fought in the Pirin

Pirin

The Pirin Mountains are a mountain range in southwestern Bulgaria, with Vihren the highest peak, situated at . The range extends about 40 km northwest-southeast, and about 25 km wide. Most of the range is protected in the Pirin National Park...

region, and that is why the people gave him the nickname "Pirin

Pirin

Tsar

Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...

" (Pirinski Tsar). He was one from the organizers of the Miss Stone Affair

Miss Stone Affair

The Miss Stone Affair was the kidnapping of American Protestant missionary Ellen Maria Stone and her pregnant friend Katerina Stefanova–Tsilka by an IMORO detachment led by the voivoda Yane Sandanski and the sub-voivodas Hristo Chernopeev and Krǎstyo Asenov on 21 August 1901. The two women were...

- America's first modern hostage crisis. On September 3, 1901, a Protestant missionary named Ellen Stone set out on horseback across the mountainous hinterlands of Macedonia and was ambushed by a band of armed revolutionaries. Sandanski was also active in the anti-Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising

The Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising or simply the Ilinden Uprising of August 1903 |Macedonia]] affected most of the central and southwestern parts of the Monastir Vilayet receiving the support mainly of the local Bulgarian peasants and to some extent of the Aromanian population of the region...

. The Militias active in the region of Serres

Serres

, led by Yane Sandanski and an insurgent detachment of the Macedonian Supreme Committee, held down a large Turkish force. These actions began on the day of the Feast of the Cross

Feast of the Cross

In the Christian liturgical calendar, there are several different Feasts of the Cross, all of which commemorate the cross used in the crucifixion of Jesus....

and did not involve the local population as much as in other regions, but were well to the east of Monastir and to the west of Thrace

Thrace

.

Since 1908 until the Balkan Wars

Balkan Wars

The Balkan Wars were two conflicts that took place in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe in 1912 and 1913.By the early 20th century, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia, the countries of the Balkan League, had achieved their independence from the Ottoman Empire, but large parts of their ethnic...

he supported the movement of the Young Turks

Young Turks

The Young Turks , from French: Les Jeunes Turcs) were a coalition of various groups favouring reformation of the administration of the Ottoman Empire. The movement was against the absolute monarchy of the Ottoman Sultan and favoured a re-installation of the short-lived Kanûn-ı Esâsî constitution...

. After the Young Turk Revolution

Young Turk Revolution

The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 reversed the suspension of the Ottoman parliament by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, marking the onset of the Second Constitutional Era...

during the Second Constitutional Era

Second Constitutional Era (Ottoman Empire)

The Second Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire began shortly after Sultan Abdülhamid II restored the constitutional monarchy after the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. The period established many political groups...

Sandanski was also founder and leader of one of the left political parties in Ottoman Macedonia - Peoples' Federative Party (Macedonian Section), which headquarter was in Solun. The Kjustendil congress of Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMARO) in 1908 led to a disintegration of the organization - Yane Sandanski and Hristo Chernopeev

Hristo Chernopeev

Hristo Chernopeev was a Bulgarian revolutionary and member of the revolutionary movement in Macedonia...

contacted the Young Turks

Young Turks

and started legal operation. After the disintegration of IMARO, the two first tried to set up the Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (MORO). Later, the congress for MORO's official inauguration failed. Sandanski and Chernopeev abandoned the idea of MORO, and they started to work towards a creation of the Peoples' Federative Party. In 1909 the group around Sandanski and Chernopeev participated in the rally of the Young Turks

Young Turks

to Istanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

that led to the deposition of sultan Abdul Hamid II

Abdul Hamid II

His Imperial Majesty, The Sultan Abdülhamid II, Emperor of the Ottomans, Caliph of the Faithful was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire...

from the throne. Sandanski dreamed about the creation of a Balkan Federative Republic according to the plans of the Balkan Socialist Federation and Macedonia as a part of that Federation. He demanded that the IMARO should embrace all nationalities in the region, not only Bulgarians.

In this way it would be possible to create a healthy system aimed at the organisation of a mass uprising. Later Sandanski and his faction actively supported the Bulgarian army in the Balkan wars

Balkan Wars

of 1912–1913, initially with the idea, that their duty is to fight for autonomous Macedonia, but later fighting for Bulgaria. After the wars in 1913, observing the atrocity of Serbs

Serbs

The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...

over the local population, former IMORO members began restoration of the organizational network. In the same peiod a group around Petar Chaulev

Petar Chaulev

Petar Chaulev, also called Petre Chashule was a Bulgarian revolutionary in Ottoman Macedonia. He was a local leader of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization ....

began negotiations with the Albanian

Albanians

Albanians are a nation and ethnic group native to Albania and neighbouring countries. They speak the Albanian language. More than half of all Albanians live in Albania and Kosovo...

revolutionaries. The temporary Albanian government proposed to them a common revolt to be organized and risen. The negotiations from the part of the Organization had to be carried by Petar Chaulev

Petar Chaulev

Petar Chaulev, also called Petre Chashule was a Bulgarian revolutionary in Ottoman Macedonia. He was a local leader of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization ....

. The Bulgarian government believed however, that it would not come to a new war with Serbia

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

, so it did not attend the negotiations. However later, in June 1913 the Bulgarian government sent in Tirana

Tirana

Tirana is the capital and the largest city of Albania. Modern Tirana was founded as an Ottoman town in 1614 by Sulejman Bargjini, a local ruler from Mullet, although the area has been continuously inhabited since antiquity. Tirana became Albania's capital city in 1920 and has a population of over...

Yane Sandanski for new negotiations. He gave an interview for the newspaper "Seculo", where he said that he came to agreement with the Albanians and that from the Bulgarian side there would be organized bands and assaults. So he helped the preparation of the Ohrid-Debar Uprising

Ohrid-Debar Uprising

The Ohrid–Debar uprising was an uprising in Western Macedonia, then Kingdom of Serbia, in September 1913. It was organized by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization and by local Albanian leaders against the Serbian capture of the regions of Ohrid, Debar and Struga.The rebellion...

, organised jointly by IMORO and the Albanians of Western Macedonia. After the wars

Balkan Wars

, Pirin Macedonia was ceded to Bulgaria and he resettled again in the Kingdom

Kingdom of Bulgaria

The Kingdom of Bulgaria was established as an independent state when the Principality of Bulgaria, an Ottoman vassal, officially proclaimed itself independent on October 5, 1908 . This move also formalised the annexation of the Ottoman province of Eastern Rumelia, which had been under the control...

Controversy

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

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

Sofia

Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...

was completely identified to the adversary character of Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

and Belgrade

Belgrade

Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

. The activists of Serres nonetheless stipulated that the Macedonian Question could not be resolved if it is formulated as a part of a Bulgaria

Bulgaria

n national question. However the idea of Macedonian autonomy was strictly political and did not imply a secession from Bulgarian ethnicity. 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 an later of Ivan Garvanov

Ivan Garvanov

Ivan Garvanov was a Bulgarian revolutionary and leader of the revolutionary movement in Macedonia and Eastern Thrace. He was among the leaders of the Bulgarian Secret Revolutionary Brotherhood and later of the Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees...

and Boris Sarafov

Boris Sarafov

Boris Petrov Sarafov was a revolutionary from the region of Macedonia, one of the leaders of Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee and Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization...

, 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

Amnesty

Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...

by the Bulgarian Parliament after the support he gave to the Bulgarian Army during the Balkan wars

Balkan Wars

There was, a long history of friction between the Bulgarian Exarchate

Bulgarian Exarchate

The Bulgarian Exarchate was the official name of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church before its autocephaly was recognized by the Ecumenical See in 1945 and the Bulgarian Patriarchate was restored in 1953....

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 extreme leftist he also had ever 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

Young Turks

, opposing other factions of IMARO, which fought against the Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

authorities in this period.

During the first days of Young Turk Revolution

Young Turk Revolution

The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 reversed the suspension of the Ottoman parliament by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, marking the onset of the Second Constitutional Era...

, 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

Balkan Wars

and as result most of Macedonia was ceded to Greece and Serbia, Sandanski attempted to organize the assassination of Bulgarian Tsar Ferdinand I, but it failed.

The Centralists organised several unsuccessful assassination attempts against Sandanski. They came closest to achieving their goal in Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...

, where Tane Nikolov

Tane Nikolov

Tane Nikolov was a Bulgarian revolutionary and member of the revolutionary movement in Macedonia, Thrace and Pomoravlje...

managed to kill two other Federalists and heavily wounded Sandanski. Eventually, Sandanski was killed near the Rozhen Monastery

Rozhen Monastery

The Rozhen Monastery of the Nativity of the Mother of God is the biggest monastery in the Pirin Mountains in southwestern Bulgaria. It is one of the few medieval Bulgarian monasteries well preserved until today....

on April 22, 1915, while travelling from Melnik

Melnik, Bulgaria

to Nevrokop, by local IMARO activists.

Legacy

In the Republic of Macedonia Sandanski is considered a national hero and one of the most prominent revolutionary figures of the 20th century. Most of the Macedonian mainstream specialists on the history of local revolutionary movement, like Academician Katardzhiev, argue that the political separatism of Sandanski represented a form of early Macedonian nationalism

Macedonian nationalism

Macedonian nationalism is a term referring to the ethnic Macedonian version of nationalism.-Late 19th century beginning:The development of the Macedonian ethnicity can be said to have begun in the late 19th and early 20th century. This is the time of the first expressions of ethnic nationalism by...

, asserting later that at that time it was only a political phenomenon, without an ethnic character. Today, Sandanski is one of the names mentioned in the National anthem of the Republic of Macedonia. In Bulgaria the communist regime appreciated Sandanski because of his socialist ideas and honoured him by re-naming the town Sveti Vrach to Sandanski

Sandanski

-Municipality:Sandanski is the seat of Sandanski municipality , which includes the following 54 places:-Honour:Sandanski Point on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica is named after the town of Sandanski....

, in 1949. In the years after the Fall of Communism some right-wing Bulgarian historians have been keen to discredit his reputation. Sandanski Point

Sandanski Point

Sandanski Point is the point forming the north side of the entrance to Stoyanov Cove on the east coast of Ioannes Paulus II Peninsula, Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, projecting 600 m into Hero Bay and formed by an offshoot of Oryahovo Heights.The point is named after...

on the E coast of Ioannes Paulus II Peninsula, Livingston Island, Antarctica bears his name as well.

Biography

Controversy

Legacy

Further reading