Mecha Karnitschewa

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Mecha Karnitschewa

Mencha Karnicheva , full name Melpomena Ivanova Karnitschewa ( Bulgarian Менча Кърничева , Macedonian Мелпомена Димитрова Крничева * 16th March 1900 , Krusevo , today Republic of Northern Macedonia , † 1964 in Rome , Italy ) was an activist of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) in Macedonia and wife of Ivan Mikhailov , the leader of IMRO.

biography

Karnitschewa was born in the then Ottoman city ​​of Kruševo in a Bulgarian- Aromanian family. Her father worked as a money changer in Sofia, the capital of the Principality of Bulgaria , and later in Zaribrod (today: Dimitrovgrad , Serbia ). After the suppression of the Ilinden-Preobraschenie uprising in 1903, her mother and Mentscha fled to her father in Bulgaria.

In September 1918 she began studying in Munich . After the end of the First World War, she broke off her education and returned to Bulgaria. There she joined the women's movement of the Macedonian emigrants, where she later came into the circles around Todor Panica .

The murder in the Burgtheater

The Burgtheater on Vienna's Ringstrasse

She became more and more disappointed by Panica because she believed that Panica's connection to the Communist International and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes contradicted the aspirations of the Bulgarian independence movement in Macedonia. After this disappointment, she oriented herself to the right wing of IMRO and joined the organization on March 15, 1924. She voluntarily decided to commit murder on Todor Panica, for which she was trained by the two IMRO activists Dontscho Tschupinow and Petar Stantschew .

On May 8, 1925, she killed Todor Panica in the Vienna Burgtheater with three shots from a revolver. The murder order was issued by the IMRO for the murders committed by Todor Panica of the IMRO activists Boris Sarafov and Ivan Garvanov, as well as his collaboration with the Communist International and the IMRO (Obedinena) split it created .

The murder received tremendous attention across Europe. Mentscha was sentenced to eight years imprisonment for her serious illness, which was the minimum sentence for such an act in Austria. However, the Supreme Court of Austria stated that Mentscha had suffered from severe tuberculosis , kidney disease and rheumatism since childhood and was unable to serve his sentence. She was released at the end of 1925. Then she was expelled from Austria.

emigration

The common grave of Ivan Michajlow and Mentscha Karnitschewa in Rome, Italy

On December 25, 1926, Mentscha Karnitschewa married the then head of the IMRO, Ivan Michajlow, whom she followed after emigrating to Turkey , then Poland and finally Hungary . In 1941 she settled with him in the capital of the Independent Croatian State . After visiting her home country Macedonia for the last time in 1944, she emigrated to Rome with Michajlow in 1945 , where she lived until her death in 1964.

Web links

Commons : Mentscha Karnitschewa  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Mentscha Karnitschewa", newspaper "Macedonia", issue 10, March 10, 1999 (Bulgarian)
  2. ↑ Mentscha Karnitschewa: Why I killed Todor Panica (Bulgarian) , Publishing House of the Macedonian Scientific Institute 1993, Sofia ( online version ( Memento from January 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ))
  3. ^ Newspaper interview with Mentscha in freedom or death. April 15, 1926 (Вестник Свобода или смърт )
  4. ↑ Alfred Ritter Rappaport of Arbengau: In the land of the tortured. Memories of the Consul General of Austria-Hungary in Macedonia (1904–1909) (translated into Bulgarian)
personal data
SURNAME Karnitschewa, Mentscha
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Karnitschewa, Melpomena Dimitrova; Кърничева, Мелпомена Димитрова (Bulgarian); Кърничева, Менча (Bulgarian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Resistance fighter in Macedonia and wife of Ivan Michailow
DATE OF BIRTH March 16, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Kruševo , now the Republic of North Macedonia
DATE OF DEATH 1964
Place of death Rome , Italy