Goce Delčev

Gjorgji Nikolov Delčev (Macedonian: Ѓорѓи Николов Делчев; 4 February 1872 – 4 May 1903), known as Goce Delčev (Гоце Делчев), was an important Macedonian revolutionary (komitadji), Delčev was its 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 Macedonian family in Kukuš, then in the Salonika vilayet of the Ottoman Empire, in his youth he was inspired by the ideals of earlier revolutionaries such as Vasil Levski and Hristo Botev, who envisioned the creation of a Macedonian republic of ethnic and religious equality, as part of an imagined Balkan Federation. Delčev completed his secondary education in the Men's High School of Thessaloniki and entered the Military School of His Princely Highness in Sofia, but he was dismissed from there, only a month before his graduation, because of his leftist political persuasions. Then he returned to Ottoman Macedonia 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 Internal Revolutionary Organization, he opted for Macedonian independence. Also for him, like for many Macedonians, originating from an area with mixed population, As a result, his political agenda became the establishment through revolution of an independent Macedono-Adrianople supranational state into the framework of the Ottoman Empire, as a prelude to its incorporation within a future Balkan Federation. In this way he emphasized the importance of cooperation among all ethnic groups in the territories concerned in order to obtain political autonomy. Today Goce Delčev is considered a national hero in Bulgaria and North Macedonia. Because his autonomist ideas have stimulated the subsequent development of Macedonian nationalism,

Early life
He was born to a large Macedonian family on 4 February 1872 (23 January according to the Julian calendar) in Kılkış (Kukuš), then in the Ottoman Empire (today in Greece). By the mid-19th century, Kılkış was populated predominantly with Christians and became one of the centres of the Macedonian 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, Delčev 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 chitalište (community cultural center), where he was impressed with revolutionary books, and was especially imbued with thoughts of the liberation of Macedonia. In 1888 his family sent him to the Men's High School of Thessaloniki, where he organized and led a secret revolutionary brotherhood. Delčev also distributed revolutionary literature, which he acquired from the school's graduates who studied in Bulgaria. Graduation from high school was faced with few career prospects and Delčev decided to follow the path of his former schoolmate Boris Sarafov, entering the military school in Sofia in 1891.

Delčev spent his leaves in the company of emigrants from Macedonia. Most of them belonged to the Young Macedonian Literary Society. One of his friends was Vasil Glavinov, a leader of the Macedonian-Adrianople faction of the 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, Delčev and the journalist Kosta Šahov, a chairman of the Young Macedonian Literary Society, met in Sofia with the bookseller from Thessaloniki, Ivan Hadži Nikolov. Hadži Nikolov 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. Delčev explained, 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 because of his political activity as a member of an illegal socialist circle. He was given the possibility to enter the Army again by re-applying for a commission, but he refused. Afterwards he returned to European Turkey to work there as a Bulgarian teacher, aiming to get involved in the new liberation movement. At that time, the revolutionary organization commonly known as Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (MRO) was in its early stages of development, forming its committees around the Bulgarian Exarchate schools.

Teacher and revolutionary
In Ottoman Thessaloniki, MRO was founded in 1893, by a small band of anti-Ottoman Macedonian revolutionaries, including Hadži Nikolov. The first name of the organization is disputed, but among its early names were Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (MRO) and Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (SMARO). where he met another teacher, Dame Gruev, who was also a leader of the newly established local committee of the MRO. As a result of the close friendship between the two, Delčev joined the organization immediately and gradually became one of its main leaders. After this, both he and Gruev worked together in Štip and its environs. The expansion of the MRO at the time was considerable, particularly after Gruev settled in Thessaloniki during the years 1895–1897, in the quality of a Bulgarian school inspector. Under his direction, Delčev travelled during the vacations throughout Macedonia and established and organized committees in villages and cities. Delčev 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 Macedonia and Thrace. 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 the late 1895 he arrived illegally in Bulgaria's capital and tried to get support from the SMAC's leadership. Delčev had a number of meetings with Danail Nikolaev, Yosif Kovačev, Toma Karajovov, Andrej Ljapčev and others, but he was often frustrated by their views. As a whole, Delčev had a negative attitude towards their activities. 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. Later Delčev participated in the Thessaloniki Congress of the MRO in the Summer. Afterwards, Delčev gave his resignation as a teacher and, in the Autumn of 1896, he moved back to Bulgaria, where he, together with Gjorče Petrov, served as foreign representatives of the organization in Sofia.

Revolutionary activity as part of the leadership of the Organization
In the period 1897–1902, he was a representative of the Foreign Committee of the MRO in Sofia. Again in Sofia, negotiating with suspicious politicians and arms merchants, Delčev saw more of the unpleasant face of the Principality and became even more disillusioned with its political system. In 1897 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. Below the regional committees were districts. The Central Committee was placed in Thessaloniki. In 1898 the Organization decided to create permanent acting armed bands (chetas) in every district, with Delčev as their leader. Delčev ensured the functioning of the underground border crossings of the organization and the arms depots added to them, alongside the then Bulgarian-Ottoman border.

His correspondence with other MRO members covers extensive data on supplies, transport and storage of weapons and ammunition in Macedonia. Delčev 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 Kjustendil in Bulgaria. The bombs were later smuggled across the Ottoman border into Macedonia. He was the first to organize and lead a band into Macedonia with the purpose of robbing or kidnapping rich Turks. His experiences demonstrate the weaknesses and difficulties which the Organization faced in its early years. Later he was one of the organizers of the Miss Stone Affair. In the winter of 1900, he resided for a while in Burgas, where Delčev organized another bomb manufacturing plant, which dynamite was used later by the Thessaloniki bombings. In 1900 he inspected also MRO's detachments in Eastern Thrace again, aiming for better coordination between Macedonian and Thracian revolutionary committees. After the assassination in July of the Romanian newspaper editor Ștefan Mihăileanu, who had published unflattering remarks about the Macedonian affairs, Bulgaria and Romania were brought to the brink of war. 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 MRO. He was among the main supporters of their activities. Delčev aimed also for better coordination between MRO and the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee. For a short time in the late 1890s lieutenant Boris Sarafov, who was a former schoolmate of Delčev became its leader. During that period the foreign representatives Delčev and Petrov became by rights members of the leadership of the Supreme Committee and so the MRO even managed to gain de facto control of the SMAC. Nevertheless, it soon split into two factions: one loyal to the MRO and one led by some officers close to the Bulgarian prince. Sometimes SMAC even clashed militarily with local SMARO bands as in the autumn of 1902. Then the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee organized a failed uprising in Pirin Macedonia (Gorna Džumaja), which merely served to provoke Ottoman repressions and hampered the work of the underground network of MRO.

The primary question regarding the timing of the uprising in Macedonia and Thrace implicated an apparent discordance not only among the SMAC and the SMARO, but also among the SMARO's leadership. At the Thessaloniki Congress of January 1903, where Delčev did not participate, an early uprising was debated and it was decided to stage one in the Spring of 1903. This led to fierce debates among the representatives at the Sofia MRO'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 Ottomans and after the subsequent intervention of the Great Powers the Empire would collapse.

Delčev also launched the establishment of a secret revolutionary network, that would prepare the population for an armed uprising against the Ottoman rule. Delčev, who was under the influence of the leading Bulgarian anarchists like Mihail Gerdžikov and Varban Kilifarski personally opposed the MRO Central Committee's plan for a mass uprising in the summer of 1903, 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. Delčev 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, Delčev 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. Delčev met with Gruev in late April and they discussed the decision of starting the uprising. After the meeting, he left for Serres, with the intention of holding a regional congress to lay out his plans for the uprising.

Death and aftermath
On 28 April, members of the Gemidžii circle started terrorist attacks in Thessaloniki. As a consequence martial law was declared in the city and many Turkish soldiers and "bashibozouks" were concentrated in the Salonika vilayet. This increased tension led eventually to the tracking of Delčev's cheta and his subsequent death. He was killed on 4 May 1903, in a skirmish with the Turkish police in the village of Banica, probably after betrayal by local villagers, as rumors asserted, while preparing the Ilinden Uprising. Thus the liberation movement lost its most important organizer, on the eve of the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising. After being identified by the local authorities in Serres, the bodies of Delčev and his comrade, Dimitar Guštanov, were buried in a common grave in Banica. 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 Ottomans, which after initial successes, was crushed with much loss of life. Two of his brothers, Mico Delčev and Milan Delčev were also killed fighting against the Ottomans as militants in the SMARO chetas of the voivodas Hristo Černopeev and Krstjo Asenov in 1901 and 1903, respectively. The Bulgarian government later granted a pension to their father Nikola Delčev 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 inhabitants, including Delčev's family, were expelled to Macedonia by the Greek Army. During Balkan Wars, when Bulgaria was temporarily in control of the area, Delčev'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 Bulgarians again and Delčev's grave near Banica was restored. In May 1943, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of his death, a memorial plaque was set in Banica, in the presence of his sisters and other public figures. Until the end of WWII Delčev was considered one of the greatest Macedonians.

The first biographical book about Delčev was issued in 1904 by his friend and comrade in arms, the poet Pejo Javorov. The most detailed biography of Delčev in English was written by English historian Mercia MacDermott: Freedom or Death: The Life of Gotse Delčev.

Views
The international, cosmopolitan views of Delčev could be summarized in his proverbial sentence: "I understand the world solely as a field for cultural competition among the peoples". 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 Delčev became a member of a left-wing circle, where he was strongly influenced by the 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 Stojanov, 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 Macedonians. The new supra-nationalistic statute renamed it to Secret Macedono-Adrianopolitan Revolutionary Organization (SMARO), which was to be an insurgent organization, open to all other ethnic groups and Thracians regardless of nationality, who wished to participate in the movement for their autonomy. His main goal, along with the other revolutionaries, was the implementation of Article 23 of the treaty, aimed at acquiring full independence of Macedonia and the Adrianople. Delčev, 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. For militants such as Delčev 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 him, 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, within the frontiers of an autonomous Macedonian-Adrianople state.

Cold war period
In 1934 the Comintern gave its support to the idea that the Macedonians 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 Delčev. 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 Delčev's aspirations for autonomous Macedonia.

On 10 October, the bones were enshrined in a marble sarcophagus in the yard of the church "Sveti Spas", where they have remained since. Delčev's name became part of the anthem of SR Macedonia - Today over Macedonia.

Post-communism
Delčev is today regarded both in Bulgaria and North Macedonia as an important national hero, and both nations see him as part of their own national history. 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 Delčev between both countries. Bulgarian diplomats were also attacked when honoring Delčev by Macedonian nationalists. However, on 2 August 2017, the Bulgarian Prime Minister Bojko Borisov and his Macedonian colleague Zoran Zaev placed wreaths at the grave of Goce Delčev on the occasion of the 114th anniversary of the Ilinden Uprising. A joint commission on historical issues was also formed in 2018 to resolve controversial historical readings, including the dispute about Delčev's ethnic identity, which remains unresolved. The Association of Historians in Macedonia came out against the calls for a joint celebration of Delčev, seeing them as a threat to Macedonian national identity.

His memory is honored especially in the Pirin Macedonia and among the descendants of Bulgarian refugees from other parts of the region, where he is regarded as the most important revolutionary from the second generation of freedom fighters. His name appears also in the national anthem of North Macedonia: "Denes nad Makedonija" (Today over Macedonia). There are two towns named in his honor: Goce Delčev in Bulgaria and Delčevo in Macedonia. There are also two peaks named after Delčev: Gocev Vrah, the summit of Slavjanka Mountain, and Delčev Vrah or Delčev 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. Today many artifacts related to Delčev's activity are stored in different museums across Bulgaria and North Macedonia.

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 Macedonians afterwards are removed. Macedonians tourists are restrained occasionally to visit the place.

On February 4, 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 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 the malfunction of the border system. However, problems with the admission of the Bulgarians continued even after the processing of their documents. As a result, some 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.