Ștefan Mihăileanu

Mihăileanu's dictionary

Ștefan Mihăileanu was born in 1859, in Beala di Suprâ, Ottoman Empire. An ethnic Aromanian, he was one of the first students in Ottoman Macedonia to attend classes in the Aromanian language. Due to the political turmoil that preceded the Macedonian Struggle, Mihăileanu's uncle brought him to Romania where he continued his education in the Saint Sava National College.[1] The Macedonian Struggle, a series of intertwined cultural, political and military conflicts between the various ethnic and religious communities residing in Macedonia was to preoccupy Mihăileanu until the end of his life.[2] He combined his career as a teacher with publishing the Macedonia newspaper between 1888 and 1889. Later on he continued to produce articles for Peninsula Balcanică (1893–1900). There he put out proposals on the resolution of the Macedonian conflict and engaged in polemics with Greek and Bulgarian newspapers. Proposing the slogan "Aromanians by Themselves", he promoted the foundation of churches and schools in Aromanian communities across Macedonia where a separate Aromanian identity was to be forged. His newspaper was widely distributed in Aromanian communities in Macedonia and even Thessaly and Epirus. Unlike Greek and Bulgarian activists he rejected anti–Ottoman irredentism.[1]

On February 1, 1900, in Bucharest the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee (SMAC) agents killed Kiril Fitovski, who was sent by the Committee to buy weapons in Romania, but subsequently was suspected of spying on behalf of the Ottoman government. Romanian police captured the assassins Boicho Iliev and Hristo Karambulov, who made full confessions and revealed the involvement of the Supreme Macedonian Committee in the assassination. Subsequently Mihăileanu published a number of articles in Peninsula Balcanică, in which he branded SMAC as a criminal organization extorting wealthy people (including Aromanians) for money and revealed details of its preparations for armed struggle in Macedonia. SMAC's chairman Boris Sarafov reacted by ordering his assassination.[3]

On 22 July 1900, Mihăileanu was assassinated by a Bulgarian SMAC komitadji Stoyan Dimitrov in Bucharest.[2] His assassination created a diplomatic crisis between Romania and Bulgaria. An outcry of public opinion followed, tributes to Mihăileanu were published in the press and letters of support were sent to his place of birth describing him as a martyr of Romanianism. A play and several poems were dedicated to his memory. On 30 October, a Romanian court sentenced everyone involved in the plot both captured and in absentia to life in prison. In 1901, Mihăileanu's Aromanian–Romanian dictionary was published, written in such a way so as to enrich the Aromanian idiom with specially modified Romanian words.[1]