Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization

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IMRO emblem with the slogan "Freedom or Death"

The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (short IMRO ; also VMRO or WMRO of Bulgarian Вътрешна Македонска Революционна Организация Watreschna Makedonska Rewoljuzionna Organisazija or Macedonian Внатрешна Македонска Револуционерна Организација Vnatrešna Makedonska Revolucionerna Organizacija ) was a revolutionary national liberation movement of the Bulgarians and Slavic Macedonians in the historical region Macedonia , later a radical nationalist party in Tsarist Bulgaria and a paramilitary organization in the Macedonian part of Yugoslavia , which also made use of terrorist means. It was founded in 1919 and was a successor to the where at this time for the October 23, 1893 the Ottoman Empire belonging Thessaloniki founded the Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrian Opeler Revolutionary Committee (BMORK). In 1934 it was dissolved; Successor organizations still exist in Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia to this day.

precursor

Beginnings

The founders of IMRO

Founding members were next to their later leaders, Christo Tatartschew and Dame Gruew , Petar Poparsow , Anton Dimitrov , Christo Batandschiew and Ivan Chadschinikolow . In 1895 Gruew met Goze Deltschew , who then eventually also joined the BMORK and later became one of the most important people in the organization. The original aim of the BMORK was to organize an uprising among the population in Macedonia and Thrace, who were dissatisfied with Ottoman rule , in order to achieve liberation or at least autonomy; before that, Serbia , Bulgaria and Greece had at least partially achieved independence for decades and tried to gain influence in this multi-ethnic area. First of all, liberation and merger with Bulgaria was sought. Later, the strategy was changed to the effect that in the first step they sought autonomy and in the second step the connection to Bulgaria based on the model of Eastern Rumelia .

Komitaji

Armed fight

The first turning point came in 1897 when Ottoman police troops uncovered a BMORK ammunition dump in the village of Vinica near the then Ottoman-Bulgarian border. With the ensuing arrests and repression of BMORK members, the BMORK changed from a group of idealistic revolutionaries to a militant guerrilla whose fighters were called Komitaji . 1902 followed the first renaming in "Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization" (Тайна Македоно-Одринска революционна организация - ТМОРО or TMORO). The organization was now split into two wings: the autonomists around Delcev, who always pursued the liberation of Macedonia as their goal, and the supremists, who tried to achieve annexation by Bulgaria without resistance from Serbia and Greece by provoking a war .

The heads of TMORO in Eastern Thrace, published in Iljustracija Ilinden , magazine of the Ilinden organization (1927)

Ilinden uprising

At the beginning of 1903 attacks and assassinations by the TMORO increased, to which the Ottoman troops reacted with retaliatory measures. Unrest grew among the Macedonian population, and the planned concerted uprising threatened to become a premature sure-fire success. Serbia and Greece used these circumstances to send paramilitary troops to Macedonia in order to be able to react in the event of an uprising and to initiate an annexation. This means that Greeks and Serbs, like the Turks, were viewed by the TMORO as enemies. The uprising, which was actually planned for autumn 1903, now had to be brought forward. Deltchev died on May 4, 1903; nevertheless, the Ilinden-Preobraschenie uprising was initiated a few months later. With the proclamation of the republics of Kruševo and Strandscha , the TMORO experienced its greatest success to date, which however became a trauma with the suppression of the uprising.

Time until the Balkan Wars

Komitaji of the Macedonian-Adrianople Landwehr in the Bulgarian Army in the First Balkan War

The uprising, which was successful in the beginning and ultimately disastrous, led the left wing of the autonomists to split off from the TMORO for good. In 1905 it was renamed "Inner Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization" (Вътрешна Македоно-Одринска революционна организация - ВМОРО or WMORO) . At first sight the liberation of Macedonia and Thrace was still given as the goal - but only to secure the support of Serbia and Greece, which was helpful for the WMORO in order to weaken the Ottomans, and because neither Serbia, Greece nor Austria- Hungary would have allowed the desired connection to Bulgaria without further ado.

WMORO restricted its activities for a number of years until the first Balkan War emerged in 1912 , which ended with Macedonia being divided between Serbia, Greece and, to a lesser extent, Bulgaria, which was given Thrace and Adrianople in return. During the Balkan Wars, the organization was subordinated to the Bulgarian Army as the Macedonian-Adrianople Landwehr and fought alongside it in Thrace against the Turks, and later in Macedonia against the Serbs and Greeks.

Radicalization

Todor Aleksandrov

With Todor Aleksandrov , a supporter of a Greater Bulgarian Empire took over the leadership of WMORO in 1912 and now finally embarked on a radical Bulgarian nationalist course of the organization. The WMORO was now using its guerrilla fighters , known as Komitaji , more and more frequently to carry out attacks and assassinations on Serbian and Greek targets. At the same time a political arm of the WMORO that as nationalist party right on the very edge considerable influence established itself in Bulgaria soon on the Bulgarian policy during the outbreak of World War I who should. The WMORO, which supported the tsar's course to take part in the First World War as part of the Central Powers , hoped to separate the whole of Macedonia from Serbia and Greece and to join Bulgaria. During the war years, this project looked promising in view of the considerable Bulgarian territorial gains and the German-Bulgarian Agreement of 1915, which not only struck Bulgaria as a whole in Vardar-Macedonia, but also in eastern Serbia.

However, as part of the defeated Central Powers, Bulgaria again suffered considerable territorial losses in 1919. The Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine now seemed to finalize most of Macedonia's remaining with Greece and Serbia; In addition, Bulgaria had to return the Dobruja to Romania and also lost Western Thrace with its access to the Aegean Sea. This was often perceived as the "second national disaster" (after the first in 1913). Hundreds of thousands of refugees poured from the lost territories into the remaining Bulgarian territory. The aftermath of the First World War plunged Bulgaria into a serious social and economic crisis, which the then Prime Minister Aleksandar Stambolijski sought to find a compromise with Greece and Serbia.

In this situation, Todor Aleksandrov, the young Ivan Michajlow and the Ohrid-born General Aleksandar Protogerow founded the Inner Macedonian Revolutionary Organization from the remnants of the WMORO.

Escalation of violence

With this, Stambolijski came into the role of the number one enemy of the IMRO and the Bulgarian officer elite. As an instrument of the military , IMRO Komitaji carried out an assassination attempt on Stambolijski in June 1923 , after they had already murdered his Foreign and Defense Minister Aleksandar Dimitrov on October 22, 1921 and a first attempt on Stambolijski had failed on February 2 was killed. With Stambolijski's successor, Aleksandar Zankow , Bulgaria again had a right-wing government that gave IMRO sovereignty over Pirin-Macedonia . IMRO took control of the border between Bulgaria and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and not only supported the right-wing government, but also established close contacts with fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini .

In the area of Petritsch in the Blagoevgrad Oblast , the IMRO established a "state within the state" from around 1922 to 1934. Own taxes were raised, public life was monitored and a guerrilla war was waged with Serbia and Yugoslavia , which strained the foreign policy relationship between Sofia and Belgrade.

In 1924 the revisionist Ivan Michajlow took over the management of IMRO, which from then on carried out attacks more and more frequently. This time the attacks were not only concentrated in Serbia and Greece, but took place across Europe. From 1919 to 1934 members of the IMRO murdered a total of 340 representatives of the Yugoslav state, but on the other hand an estimated 4,200 members and sympathizers of the IMRO were also murdered, often by their own people, because fatal internal battles were not uncommon.

Reached its peak of violence in October 1934, when "the driver" Tschernosemski Wlado in Marseille that of the IMRO in cooperation with the Croatian Ustasha planned assassination of Yugoslav King I. Alexander and French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou committed, in which both killed came. The IMRO thus sealed its fate, as the Bulgarian military was no longer willing to accept the vulnerability of Bulgaria provoked by the IMRO. IMRO was de facto disempowered. Incidentally, with this act, the IMRO also triggered the first international anti-terrorism legislation of the League of Nations , which was passed in 1936.

After communism had also reached Bulgaria, IMRO split.

Split of the left wing

In 1925 several former supporters of the left wing of the IMRO met in Vienna and founded the United IMRO (ВМРО (обединета)) , which distanced itself from the Bulgarian IMRO course and instead saw in the tradition of the Republic of Kruševo . The idea of ​​an independent Macedonia was still being pursued, in which all "nationalities who live and have lived here [...] Bulgarians, Albanians, Turks, Jews, Wallachians, Greeks, Roma" should live together following the example of the Soviet Union . Close contacts were established with communist parties in the Balkans and the CPSU, and the United IMRO was finally recognized by the Comintern . Close cooperation developed, especially with the Communist Party of Greece . The United IMRO disbanded in 1936, but its essence continued into the Greek Civil War . By 1948 at the latest, IMRO became a thing of the past in Yugoslavia . In the decades that followed, the IMRO became more and more mystified and glorified, especially in Yugoslavia.

Names

  • 1893 - Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committee (BMORK)
  • 1902 - Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (TMORO)
  • 1905 - Inner Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (IMARO)
  • 1919 - Inner Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO)

The IMRO worked with other sub-organizations such as B. the Inner Thracian Revolutionary Organization (ITRO) , Inner Dobrujani Revolutionary Organization (IDRO) and the Inner Western Territories Revolutionary Organization (IWRO) .

Great personalities

Rediscovery

When parties were founded in many places in the wake of the political upheavals in Eastern Europe in 1990, the IMRO was rediscovered. In 1990, the VMRO-DPMNE (ВМРО-Демократска партија за македонско национално единство - IMRO-Democratic Party for IM Macedonian National Unity) was founded in the Republic of Macedonia .

On July 14, 2004, the former Prime Minister and Chairman of the VMRO-DPMNE Ljubčo Georgievski founded his own party under the name VMRO-NP ( ВМРО-Народна партија - IMRO People's Party ), which wants to build on the continuity of the tasks and goals of the IMRO and advocate closer relations with Bulgaria.

In Bulgaria, the right-wing conservative party IMRO - Bulgarian National Movement (ВМРО-Българско национално движение) was founded by the Federation of Macedonian Cultural Associations in 1990 , which also ties in with the history of IMRO - albeit with the Bulgarian national wing. On March 9, 2010, WMRO-NIE was founded in Bulgaria as a spin-off from IMRO-BNB .

literature

  • Stefan Troebst: The "Inner Macedonian Revolutionary Organization" and the foreign policy of the Weimar Republic (1919–1933). In: Same: The Macedonian Century. From the beginnings of the national revolutionary movement to the Ohrid Agreement 1893–2001. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-58050-1 , pp. 85-110.

Web links

Commons : Inner Macedonian Revolutionary Organization  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dimitar Georgiev: Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO). In Peter Chalk: Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Volume 1, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara (CA) 2013, p. 318.
  2. ^ Robert Bideleux, Ian Jeffries: The Balkans. A Post-Communist History. Routledge, Abingdon (Oxon) / New York 2007, p. 79.
  3. ↑ Dimitar Georgiev: Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO). In Peter Chalk: Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Volume 1, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara (CA) 2013, p. 318.
  4. ↑ Claudia Weber : In search of the nation. Culture of remembrance in Bulgaria from 1878–1944. (= Studies on the history, culture and society of Southeast Europe 2.) Lit-Verlag, Münster 2006, ISBN 3-8258-7736-1 , p. 248.
  5. ↑ Stefan Troebst: Ivan Michajlov in Turkish and Polish exile (1934–1939 / 49). Fragments of the political biography of the head of the "Inner Macedonian Revolutionary Organization". In: The Macedonian Century. From the beginnings of the national revolutionary movement to the Ohrid Agreement 1893-2001. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 2007, pp. 175-224, on p. 176.
  6. ↑ Stefan Troebst: From the ethnopolitical battlefield to the inter-ethnic stability pole. Violence and Nonviolence in the Macedonia Region in the “Long” 20th Century. In: Nationality Conflicts in the 20th Century. A comparison of causes of inter-ethnic violence. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2001, pp. 35-55, on pp. 43-44.