Republic of Kruševo

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The Republic of Kruševo was a short-lived political entity proclaimed by the Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (TMORO) on August 2, 1903, during the Ilinden Uprising against the Ottoman Empire .

Their claimed territory was in the area around Kruševo , west of Prilep , in what was then Ottoman Vilayet Manastır , in what is now the Republic of North Macedonia . The city of Kruševo had about 9000 inhabitants at that time, it was predominantly inhabited by Christians, especially by Aromanians (in the diction of the time “ Vlachen ”). The President of the Republic was the Bulgarian-Macedonian school teacher Nikola Karev . It lasted 10 days. Bulgarians and Slavic Macedonians, Aromanians, Christian Albanians and “ Graecomanians ” (Greek Orthodox Slavs, Albanians or Vlachians who culturally defined themselves as Greeks) were represented in the local council, a kind of “constitutive parliamentary assembly” . In the further course of the fighting, the insurgents were able to proclaim the also short-lived Republic of Strandscha . On August 13, the "Republic" was crushed by Ottoman troops.

The protagonists of the republic were and are revered as heroes in both Macedonia and Bulgaria, and numerous legends surround them. The report Kruševo i negovite borbi za svoboda ("Kruševo and his struggles for freedom") Nikola Kirov-Majskis , a participant in the uprising and cousin of President Karev, is considered one of the most important testimonies of the Ilinden uprising. According to their own statements, Kirov-Majski and Karev wrote an "Appeal to the Turkish people in the Kruševo revolutionary district", later known as the "Kruševo Manifesto". However, its actual existence is not documented. The text was only verifiably published for the first time in 1939, so there are doubts as to its authenticity. During the Second World War, the communist partisans in Macedonia invoked the Ilinden uprising as a model for their struggle against foreign rule and gave the slogan of an "eternal Kruševo". Immediately after the end of the war, Kruševo was given the nickname “Monument City ” (spomen grad) . The citizens of the city of Kruševo built a memorial and a museum to the victims of the uprising. The Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia of 1991 refers to the "constitutional traditions of the Republic of Kruševo", which it thus regards as the beginning of its own state sovereignty.

  • The flag of the Republic of Kruševo

  • Republic Kruševo Monument

  • Nikola Karev Monument in Kruševo

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Björn Sacrifice: In the Shadow of War. Occupation or Anschluss - Liberation or Oppression? A comparative study of the Bulgarian rule in Vardar Macedonia 1915–1918 and 1941–1944. Lit, Münster 2005. ISBN 3-8258-7997-6 , p. 27.
  2. ↑ a b c Sabine Riedel: The invention of the Balkan peoples. Identity politics between conflict and integration. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005, p. 117.
  3. ↑ a b Torsten Szobries: Linguistic aspects of nation-building in Macedonia. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1999, p. 56.
  4. ↑ Björn Sacrifice: In the Shadow of War. Occupation or Anschluss - Liberation or Oppression? 2005, p. 29.
  5. ↑ Keith Brown: The Past in Question. Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation. Princeton University Press, Princeton / Oxford 2003, p. 81.
  6. ↑ Björn Sacrifice: In the Shadow of War. Occupation or Anschluss - Liberation or Oppression? 2005, p. 293.
  7. ↑ Christian Voss: Irredentism as a historical self-design. Scientific discourse and state symbolism in the Republic of Macedonia. In: Osteuropa , No. 7/2003, pp. 949-962, on p. 957.