Dimitar Stefanov

Dimitar Stefanov

Dimitar Georgiev Stefanov (common transcription: Dimitar Georgiev Stefanov , Bulgarian Димитър Георгиев Стефанов * 15. August 1872 in Karaagac, Russian Empire (today Nahirne in Ukraine †) 12. February 1940 in Burgas ) was a Bulgarian revolutionary , politician and Functionary of the BMARK ( Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committee / Български Македоно-Одрински революционни комитети , which was later renamed VMRO ) and the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee . Between October 22, 1918 and January 30, 1920 he was mayor of Burgas on the Black Sea .

Life

Dimitar Stefanow was born on August 15, 1872 in Karaagaç, Bessarabia , to a Bulgarian refugee family. One of his ancestors on his father's side was a voivode in the Rhodope Mountains (today southern Bulgaria). Dimitar attended elementary school in his home village and then the famous Bolgrad grammar school . In 1854 he graduated from Moscow University with a law degree and was appointed lieutenant in the Russian army by the Kiev Military School.

In 1897 Stefanov moved to Bulgaria, which had been liberated since 1878, and first settled in Russe , where he worked as a district judge and later in Varna , as a district judge and public prosecutor . At the beginning of 1900 he worked as a legal advisor at the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church . In the same year Stefanov came into contact with the associations of Macedonian Bulgarians and in the second half of the year he was appointed rector of the Bulgarian men's high school in Bitola , Macedonia, by the Bulgarian Exarchate . Once there, Macedonia was still under Ottoman-Turkish rule, he was accepted into the leadership of the Bitola Revolutionary Committee of the BMARK.

In the middle of 1901 Dimitar Stefanow returned to Bulgaria. In September of the same year Stefanow was elected next to Tusche Deliiwanow by the Central Committee of the BMARK in Thessaloniki as the organization's representative in Bulgaria. In early 1902 he represented the organization at the Congress of the Adrianople ( Eastern Thrace ) Revolutionary Committee of the BMARK in Plovdiv alongside Goze Deltschew and at the 10th Congress of Refugee Organizations of Bulgarians from Macedonia and Eastern Thrace in Sofia . On the latter, he sat down against the Gorna-Jumaya uprising planned by the Macedonia-Adrianople Supreme Committee , as he saw the preparations for the Ilinden uprising in danger.

In May 1903, Stefanov illegally crossed the Bulgarian-Ottoman border with the Cheta of Jane Sandanski (another leader of the Macedonian movement in Bulgaria) to Macedonia, where he took part in combat operations with the Ottoman army after the outbreak of the Ilinden-Preobraschenie uprising. At the beginning of September he headed the BMARK congress near Serres , where he was elected alongside Aleksandar Radoslawow and Simeon Molerow to lead the uprising in the Serres combat area (now northern Greece). After that, Stefanov took part in combat operations in the Razlog and Belitsa region.

The uprising lasted only 20 days, however, until the Ottoman government sent 350,000 Turkish soldiers with artillery , cavalry and an unspecified number of militants ( Başı Bozuk ) to meet the 26,000 insurgents . In Macedonia and Thrace there were also 5,000-15,000 civilians among the fatalities, 200 villages were razed to the ground, 12,000 houses burned, 70,000 people were made homeless, tens of thousands fled to neighboring countries, etc. a. at least 30,000 to Bulgaria.

After the suppression of the uprising, Dimitar Stefanow belonged to the commission in Sofia in late 1903 and early 1904, which worked out the guidelines for the further development and activities of the BMARK. In the spring of 1904 he moved to Burgas, on the Black Sea. In 1905 he took part in the Rila Congress of the organization, at which he was elected to represent the organization in Bulgaria alongside Gjortsche Petrow and Petar Poparsow . In February 1908 he took part in the organization's congress in Kyustendil as a delegate of the Thessaloniki Revolutionary Committee .

Dimitar Stefanow took part as an officer in the Balkan Wars of 1912/1913 and in the First World War. Seriously wounded in 1916, he returned to the front after recovering. For his bravery he was honored with the Order of St. Alexander after the wars .

Between October 22, 1918 and January 30, 1920 Dimitar Stefanow was mayor of the port city of Burgas and then a councilor. In 1928 he was elected from the list of the Democratic Party to the Bulgarian parliament , in 1931 he became governor of the Burgas province. His increased involvement in domestic politics led to the abandonment of active leadership within Macedonian organizations, although Burgas was overcrowded with Bulgarian refugees from Macedonia and Eastern Thrace.

Dimitar Stefanow died on February 12, 1940 in Burgas.

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• Short biography of Dimitar Stefanow on the website of the municipality of Burgas (PDF; 435 kB)
• Short biography of Dimitar Stefanow in Ivan Karajotow, Stojan Rajtschewski, Mitko Ivanov: История на Бургас. От древността до средата на ХХ век (about German history of the city of Burgas. From antiquity to the middle of the 20th century) , 2011, ISBN 978-954-92689-1-1 , p. 287

predecessor	Office	successor
Waltschan Waltschanow	Mayor of Burgas 1918–1920	Petar Shitarov