Thread by @Helena_Erben

#IMRO, #Skopjes #Secret #Bulgarian #Army composed by around 150 000 🇧🇬Komitadjis.
This map show the most important of these 🇧🇬Komitadjis
Looking on this map we can see many 🇧🇬officers.
This is something that the government in Skopje don't want you to know.

2/Poster of most important members of IMRO and SMAC between 1893 and 1913

The organization was founded in 1893 in Ottoman Thessaloniki by a small band of anti-Ottoman Bulgarian revolutionaries who considered Makedonia an indivisible territory and claimed

3/all of its inhabitants "Makedonians", no matter their religion or ethnicity.
In practice, IMRO was established by Bulgarians and most of their followers were Bulgarians.

The organization was a secret revolutionary society operating in the late 19th and

4/early 20th centuries with the goal to annex Macedonia and unite it with 🇧🇬.

The organization was founded by Hristo Tatarchev, Dame Gruev, Petar Pop-Arsov, Andon Dimitrov, Hristo Batandzhiev and Ivan Hadzhinikolov.
Most of them (with the exception

5/of Ivan Hadzhinikolov) were closely connected with the 🇧🇬Men's High School of Thessaloniki.

According to Dr. Hristo Tatarchev:

We talked a long time about the goal of this organization and at last we fixed it on the autonomy of Makedonia with the priority

6/ of the 🇧🇬
element.
We couldn't accept the position for "direct joining to Bulgaria" because we saw that it would meet big difficulties by reason of confrontation of the Great powers & the aspirations of the neighbouring small countries and Turkey

7/ It passed through our thoughts that one autonomous Makedonia could easier unite with 🇧🇬 subsequently and if the worst comes to the worst, that it could play a role as a unifying link of a federation of Balkan people. The region of Adrianople, didn't take

8/ part in our program, and the idea to add it to autonomous Makedonia came later.

In Dame Gruev's memoirs, the MRO's goals are stated as follows...

Part II
to be continued...

🧶11/
Swearing in for each member was also envisaged. In the regulations, there was nothing concerning the Serbian propaganda but we intended to counteract it by enlightening the people.

@unrollhel

🧶10/
after the model of the Bulgarian revolutionary organisation before the Liberation. Our motto was "Implementation of the resolutions of the Berlin Treaty". We established a "Central Committee" with branches, membership fees, etc. ➡️

🧶11/
Swearing in for each member was also envisaged. In the regulations, there was nothing concerning the Serbian propaganda but we intended to counteract it by enlightening the people.

@UnrollHelper