Gotse Delchev

Georgi Nikolov Delchev (Bulgarian/Macedonian: Георги/Ѓорѓи Николов Делчев, 4 February 1872 – 4 May 1903), known as Gotse Delchev or Goce Delčev (Гоце Делчев, originally spelled in older Bulgarian orthography Гоце Дѣлчевъ),[5] was an important Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary (komitadji),[note 1][note 2][note 3][note 4] active in the Ottoman ruled Macedonia and Adrianople regions at the turn of the 20th century.[6][7][8] He was the most prominent leader of what is known today as Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), a secret revolutionary society,[9] active in Ottoman territories in the Balkans, at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century.[10] Delchev was its representative in Sofia, the capital of Principality of Bulgaria.[11] As such he was elected also a member of the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee (SMAC),[12][13] participating in the work of its governing body.[14] Though, he was killed in a battle with an Ottoman unit on the eve of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie uprising.

For other uses, see Gotse Delchev (disambiguation).
Georgi Nikolov Delchev
Георги Николов Делчев
Portrait of Gotse Delchev, Sofia 1900.
Born4 February 1872
Kukush,[1] Salonica Vilayet, Ottoman Empire (today Greece)
Died4 May 1903(1903-05-04) (aged 31)
Banitsa, Salonica Vilayet, Ottoman Empire (today Greece)
NationalityOttoman[2][3]
OrganizationBulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees[4] (later SMARO, IMARO, IMRO)

Born into a Bulgarian family in Kilkis,[15][16] then in the Salonica Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire, in his youth he was inspired by the ideals of earlier Bulgarian revolutionaries such as Vasil Levski and Hristo Botev,[17] who envisioned the creation of a Bulgarian republic of ethnic and religious equality, as part of an imagined Balkan Federation.[18] Delchev completed his secondary education in the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki and entered the Military School of His Princely Highness in Sofia, but he was dismissed from there, only a month before his graduation, because of his leftist political persuasions. Then he returned to Ottoman Macedonia as a Bulgarian teacher,[19] and immediately became an activist of the newly-found revolutionary movement in 1894.[20]

Although considering himself to be an inheritor of the Bulgarian revolutionary traditions,[21] as a committed republican Delchev was disillusioned by the reality in the post-liberation Bulgarian monarchy.[22] Also by him, as by many Macedonian Bulgarians, originating from an area with mixed population,[23] the idea of being ‘Macedonian’ acquired the importance of a certain native loyalty, that constructed a specific spirit of "local patriotism"[24][25] and "multi-ethnic regionalism".[26][27] He maintained the slogan promoted by William Ewart Gladstone, "Macedonia for the Macedonians", including all different nationalities inhabiting the area.[28][29] In this way, his outlook included a wide range of such disparate ideas as Bulgarian patriotism, Macedonian regionalism, anti-nationalism and incipient socialism.[30] As a result, his political agenda became the establishment through revolution of an autonomous Macedono-Adrianople supranational state into the framework of the Ottoman Empire,[31] as a prelude to its incorporation within a future Balkan Federation.[32] Despite he had been educated in the spirit of Bulgarian nationalism, he revised the Organization's statute, where the membership was restricted only for Bulgarians.[33] In this way he emphasized the importance of the cooperation among all ethnic groups in the territories concerned in order to obtain political autonomy.[34]

Today Gotse Delchev is considered as a national hero in Bulgaria,[35] as well as in North Macedonia, where it is claimed that he was among the founders of the Macedonian national movement.[36] Macedonian historians insist that the historical myth of Delchev there is so significant, that it is more important than all the historical researches and documents,[37] and therefore his (Bulgarian) ethnic identification,[38] should not be discussed.[39] Despite such controversial[40][41] Macedonian historical interpretations,[42][43] Delchev had clear Bulgarian ethnic identity[44][45] and viewed his compatriots as Bulgarians.[46] Some leading modern Macedonian historians, public intellectuals and politicians have recognized this begrudgingly[47][48] or even openly acknowledged that fact.[49] The designation Macedonian according to the then used ethnic terminology was an umbrella term, used for the local nationalities,[50][51] and when applied to the local Slavs, it meant a regional Bulgarian identity.[52][53] Opposite to the Macedonian claims, at that time even some IMRO revolutionaries natives from Bulgaria, as Delchev's friend Peyo Yavorov,[54] espoused Macedonian political identity.[55] However, his autonomist ideas of a separate Macedonian (and Adrianopolitan) political entity, have stimulated the subsequent development of Macedonian nationalism.[56] Nevertheless, some researchers doubt, that behind the IMRO idea of autonomy was hidden a reserve plan for eventual incorporation into Bulgaria,[57][58][59] backed by Delchev himself.[60]

Biography
Delchev (right) and his former classmate from Kilkis, Imov as officer cadets in Sofia.

Early life

He was born in a large family on 4 February 1872 (23 January according to the Julian calendar) in Kilkis, then in the Ottoman Empire (today in Greece). By the mid-19th century Kilkis was populated predominantly with Macedonian Bulgarians[61][62][63][64] and became one of the centres of the Bulgarian National Revival.[65][66] During the 1860s and 1870s it was under the jurisdiction of the Bulgarian Uniat Church,[67][68] but after 1884, most of its population gradually joined the Bulgarian Exarchate.[69][70] As a student Delchev began first to study in the Bulgarian Uniate's primary school and then in the Bulgarian Exarchate's junior high school.[71] He also read widely in the town's chitalishte, where he was impressed with revolutionary books, and especially Delchev was imbued with thoughts of the liberation of Bulgaria.[72] In 1888 his family sent him to the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki, where he organized and led a secret revolutionary brotherhood.[73] Delchev also distributed revolutionary literature, which he acquired from the school's graduates who studied in Bulgaria. Graduation from high school was faced with few career prospects and Delchev decided to follow the path of his former school-mate Boris Sarafov, entering the military school in Sofia in 1891. He at first encountered the newly independent Bulgaria full of idealism and dedication, but he later became disappointed with the commercialized life of the society and with the authoritarian politics of the prime minister Stefan Stambolov, accused of being a dictator.[74]

Letter from Delchev, where he declares himself and his compatriots as Bulgarians.[75]

Gotsе spent his leaves in the company of emigrants from Macedonia. Most of them belonged to the Young Macedonian Literary Society. One of his friends was Vasil Glavinov, a leader of the Macedonian-Adrianople faction of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers Party. Through Glavinov and his comrades, he came into contact with different people, who offered a new forms of social struggle. In June 1892, Delchev and the journalist Kosta Shahov, a chairman of the Young Macedonian Literary Society, met in Sofia with the bookseller from Thessaloniki, Ivan Hadzhinikolov. Hadzhinikolov disclosed on this meeting his plans to create a revolutionary organization in Ottoman Macedonia. They discussed together its basic principles and agreed fully on all scores. Delchev explained, he has no intention of remaining an officer and promised after graduating from the Military School, he will return to Macedonia to join the organization.[76] In September 1894, only a month before graduation, he was expelled because of his political activity as a member of an illegal socialist circle.[77] He was given a possibility to enter the Army again through re-applying for a commission, but he refused. Afterwards he returned to European Turkey to work there as a Bulgarian teacher, aiming to get involved into the new liberation movement. At that time IMRO was in its early stages of development, forming its committees around the Bulgarian Exarchate schools.[78]

Teacher and revolutionist
The diploma of Delchev from his graduation from the Military school in Sofia. [79]
Diploma from the Bulgarian Exarchate's school in Štip, signed by Delchev as a teacher.
Letter from Delchev to the Bulgarian Exarch Yosif, where he resigned as head teacher in Bansko.

Meanwhile, in Ottoman Thessaloniki a revolutionary organization was founded in 1893, by a small band of anti-Ottoman Macedono-Bulgarian revolutionaries, including Hadzhinikolov. At this time the name of the organization was Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees (BMARC), in 1902 changed to Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (SMARO).[80] It was decided at a meeting in Resen in August 1894 to preferably recruit teachers from the Bulgarian schools as committee members.[81] In the autumn of 1894 Delchev became teacher in an Exarchate school in Štip, where he met another teacher: Dame Gruev, who was also a leader of the newly established local committee of BMARC.[82] As a result of the close friendship between the two, Delchev joined the organization immediately, and gradually became one of its main leaders. After this, both Gruev and Delchev worked together in Štip and its environs. At the same time, the Organization developed quickly and had managed to begin establishing a network of local organizations across Macedonia and the Adrianople Vilayet, usually centered around the schools of the Bulgarian Exarchate.[83] The expansion of the BMARC at the time was considerable, particularly after Gruev settled in Thessaloniki during the years 1895–1897, in the quality of a Bulgarian school inspector. Under his direction, Delchev travelled during the vacations throughout Macedonia and established and organized committees in villages and cities. Delchev also established contacts with some of the leaders of the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee (SMAC). Its official declaration was a struggle for autonomy of Macedonia and Thrace.[84] However, as a rule, most of SMAC's leaders were officers with stronger connections with the governments, waging terrorist struggle against the Ottomans in the hope of provoking a war and thus Bulgarian annexation of both areas. He arrived illegally in Bulgaria's capital and tried to get support from the SMAC's leadership. Delchev had a number of meetings with Danail Nikolaev, Yosif Kovachev, Toma Karayovov, Andrey Lyapchev and others, but he was often frustrated of their views. As a whole, Delchev had a negative attitude towards their activities. After spending the next school year (1895/1896) as a teacher in the town of Bansko, in May 1896 he was arrested by the Ottoman authorities as person suspected in revolutianary activity and spent about a month in jail. Later Delchev participated in the Thessaloniki Congress of BMARC in the Summer. Afterwards, Delchev gave his resignation as teacher and, in the Autumn of 1896, he moved back to Bulgaria, where he, together with Gyorche Petrov, served as a foreign representatives of the organization in Sofia.[85] At that time the organization was largely dependent on the Bulgarian state and army assistance, that was mediated by the foreign representatives.

Revolutionary activity as part of the leadership of the Organization

Delchev's involvement in BMARC was an important moment in the history of the Macedonian-Adrianople liberation movement.[86] The years between the end of 1896, when he left the Exarchate's educational system and 1903 when he died, represented the final and most effective revolutionary phase of his short life. In the period 1897–1902 he was a representative of the Foreign Committee of the BMARC in Sofia. Again in Sofia, negotiating with suspicious politicians and arms merchants, Delchev saw more of the unpleasant face of the Principality, and became even more disillusioned with its political system. In 1897 he, along with Gyorche Petrov, wrote the new organization's statute, which divided Macedonia and Adrianople areas into seven regions, each with a regional structure and secret police, following the Internal Revolutionary Organization's example. Below the regional committees were districts.[87] The Central committee was placed in Thessaloniki. In 1898 Delchev decided to be created a permanent acting armed bands (chetas) in every district. From 1902 till his death he was the leader of the chetas, i.e. the military institute of the Organization because, he had considerable knowledge in the area of military skills.[88] Delchev ensured the functioning of the underground border crossings of the organization and the arms depots added to them, alongside the then Bulgarian-Ottoman border.

His correspondence with other BMARC/SMARO members covers extensive data on supplies, transport and storage of weapons and ammunition in Macedonia. Delchev envisioned independent production of weapons, and traveled in 1897 to Odessa, where he met with Armenian revolutionaries Stepan Zorian and Christapor Mikaelian to exchange terrorist skills and especially bomb-making.[89] That resulted in the establishment of a bomb manufacturing plant in the village of Sabler near Kyustendil in Bulgaria. The bombs were later smuggled across the Ottoman border into Macedonia.[90] Gotse Delchev was the first to organize and lead a band into Macedonia with the purpose of robbing or kidnapping rich Turks. His experiences demonstrate the weaknesses and difficulties which the Organization faced in its early years.[91] Later he was one of the organizers of the Miss Stone Affair. He made two short visits to the Adrianople area of Thrace in 1896 and 1898.[92] In the winter of 1900 he resided for a while in Burgas, where Delchev organized another bomb manufacturing plant, which dynamite was used later by the Thessaloniki bombings.[93] In 1900 he inspected also the BMARC's detachments in Eastern Thrace again, aiming better coordination between Macedonian and Thracian revolutionary committees. After the assassination in July of the Romanian newspaper editor Ștefan Mihăileanu, who had published unflattering remarks about the Macedonian affairs, Bulgaria and Romania were brought to the brink of war. At that time Delchev was preparing to organize a detachment which, in a possible war to support the Bulgarian army by its actions in Northern Dobruja, where compact Bulgarian population was available.[94][95] Since the Autumn of 1901 till the early Spring of 1902, he made an important inspection in Macedonia, touring all revolutionary districts there. He led also the congress of the Adrianople revolutionary district held in Plovdiv in April 1902. Afterwards Delchev inspected the BMARC's structures in the Central Rhodopes. The inclusion of the rural areas into the organizational districts contributed to the expansion of the organization and the increase in its membership, while providing the essential prerequisites for the formation of the military power of the organization, at the same time having Delchev as its military advisor (inspector) and chief of all internal revolutionary bands.[96]

Sultana Delcheva – Gotse's mother
Delchev's father – Nikola

After 1897 there was a rapid growth of secret Officer's brotherhoods, whose members by 1900 numbered about a thousand.[97] Much of the Brotherhoods' activists were involved in the revolutionary activity of the BMARC.[98] Among the main supporters of their activities was Gotse Delchev.[99] Delchev aimed also better coordination between BMARC and the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee. For a short time in the late 1890s lieutenant Boris Sarafov, who was former school-mate of Delchev became its leader. At that period the foreign representatives Delchev and Petrov became by rights members of the leadership of the Supreme Committee and so BMARC even managed to gain de facto control of the SMAC.[100] Nevertheless, it soon split into two factions: one loyal to the BMARC and one led by some officers close to the Bulgarian prince. Delchev opposed this officers' insistent attempts to gain control over the activity of BMARC.[101] Sometimes SMAC even clashed militarily with local SMARO bands as in the autumn of 1902. Then the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee organized a failed uprising in Pirin Macedonia (Gorna Dzhumaya), which merely served to provoke Ottoman repressions and hampered the work of the underground network of SMARO.

The primary question regarding the timing of the uprising in Macedonia and Thrace implicated an apparent discordance not only among the SMAC and the SMARO, but also among the SMARO's leadership. At the Thessaloniki Congress of January 1903, where Delchev did not participate, an early uprising was debated and it was decided to stage one in the Spring of 1903. This led to fierce debates among the representatives at the Sofia SMARO's Conference in March 1903. By that time two strong tendencies had crystallized within the SMARO. The right-wing majority was convinced that if the Organization would unleash a general uprising, Bulgaria would be provoked to declare war of the Ottomans and after the subsequent intervention of the Great Powers the Empire would collapse.[102]

The American daily New York Times from May, 11, 1903 information about the death of Delchev.

Delchev also launched the establishment of a secret revolutionary network, that would prepare the population for an armed uprising against the Ottoman rule.[103] Delchev opposed the IMRO Central Committee's plan for a mass uprising in the summer of 1903, favoring terrorist and guerilla tactics. Deltchev, who was under the influence of the leading Bulgarian anarchists as Mihail Gerdzhikov and Varban Kilifarski personally opposed the IMRO Central Committee's plan for a mass uprising in the summer of 1903, instead supporting the tactics of terrorist and guerilla tactics such as the Thessaloniki bombings of 1903.[104][105] Finally, he had no choice but agree to that course of action at least managing to delay its start from May to August. Delchev also convinced the SMARO leadership to transform its idea of a mass rising involving the civil population into a rising based on guerrilla warfare. Towards the end of March 1903 Gotse with his detachment destroyed the railway bridge over the Angista river, aiming to test the new guerrilla tactics. Following that he set out for Thessaloniki to meet with Dame Gruev after his release from prison in March 1903. Dame Gruev met with Delchev in the late April and they discussed the decision of starting the uprising. Afterwards they negotiated with some of the Thessaloniki bombers to ask them to give up the attacks as dangerous to the liberation movement, or at least to wait for the impending uprising.[106] Subsequently, Delchev met also with Ivan Garvanov, who was at that time the leader of the SMARO.[107] After this meetings Delchev headed for Mount Ali Botush where he was expected to meet with representatives from the Serres Revolutionary District detachments and to check their military preparation. But he never arrived.

Death and aftermath
Telegram by the Ottoman authorities to their Embassy in Sofia informing, Delchev, one of the leaders of the Bulgarian Committees, was killed.[108]
The first biographical book about Delchev, issued in 1904 by his friend, the Bulgarian poet and revolutionary Peyo Yavorov.
The ruins of Kilkis after the Second Balkan War.
Bulgarian postcard (1904) representing Delchev and an IMARO cheta. The inscription above reads: "The immortal Delchev."

Meanwhile, on 28 April, members of the Gemidzii circle started terrorist attacks in Thessaloniki. As a consequence martial law was declared in the city and many Turkish soldiers and "bashibozouks" were concentrated in the Salonica Vilayet. This led eventually to the tracking of Delchev's cheta and his subsequent death.[109] He died on 4 May 1903, in a skirmish with the Turkish police near the village of Banitsa, probably after betrayal by local villagers, as rumours asserted, while preparing the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising.[110] Thus the liberation movement lost its most important organizer, at the eve of the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising. After being identified by the local authorities in Serres, the bodies of Delchev and his comrade, Dimitar Gushtanov, were buried in a common grave in Banitsa. Soon afterwards SMARO, aided by SMAC organized the uprising against the Ottomans, which after initial successes, was crushed with much loss of life.[111] Two of his brothers, Mitso Delchev and Milan Delchev were also killed fighting against the Ottomans as militants in the SMARO chetas of the Bulgarian voivodas Hristo Chernopeev and Krstjo Asenov in 1901 and 1903, respectively. In 1914, by a royal decree of Tsar Ferdinand I, a pension for life was granted to their father Nikola Delchev, because of the contribution of his sons to the freedom of Macedonia.[112] During the Second Balkan War of 1913, Kilkis, which had been annexed by Bulgaria in the First Balkan War, was taken by the Greeks. Virtually all of its pre-war 7,000 Bulgarian inhabitants, including Delchev's family, were expelled to Bulgaria by the Greek Army.[113] The same happened to the population of Banitsa, the village where Delchev was buried.[114] During Balkan Wars, when Bulgaria was temporarily in control of the area, Delchev's remains were transferred to Xanthi, then in Bulgaria. After Western Thrace was ceded to Greece in 1919, the relic was brought to Plovdiv and in 1923 to Sofia, where it rested until after World War II.[115] During World War II, the area was taken by the Bulgarians again and Delchev's grave near Banitsa was restored.[116] In May 1943, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of his death, a memorial plaque was set in Banitsa, in the presence of his sisters and other public figures.[117][118] Until the end of the WWII Delchev was considered one of the greatest Bulgarians in the region of Macedonia.[119]

The first biographical book about Delchev was issued in 1904 by his friend and comrade in arms, the Bulgarian poet Peyo Yavorov.[120] The most detailed biography of Delchev in English is written by Mercia MacDermott: "Freedom or Death: The Life of Gotse Delchev".[121]

Controversy
See also: Historiography in North Macedonia
Memorial poster of IMARO issued after the Young Turk Revolution. The group presents Delchev and his already dead comrades, he personally had invited in the organisation: Toma Davidov, Mihail Apostolov, Petar Sokolov and Slavi Merdzhanov.

During the Cold war

In 1934 the Comintern gave its support to the idea that the Macedonian Slavs constituted a separate nation.[122] Prior to the Second World War, this view on the Macedonian issue had been of little practical importance. However, during the War these ideas were supported by the pro-Yugoslav Macedonian communist partisans, who strengthened their positions in 1943, referring to the ideals of Gotse Delchev. After the Red Army entered the Balkans in the late 1944, new communist regimes came into power in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. In this way their policy on the Macedonian Question was committed to the Comintern policy of supporting the development of a distinct ethnic Macedonian consciousness.[123][124] The region of Macedonia was proclaimed as the connecting link for the establishment of a future Balkan Communist Federation.[125] The newly established Yugoslav People's Republic of Macedonia, was characterized as natural result of Delchev's aspirations for autonomous Macedonia.[126]

However, initially he was proclaimed by its Communist leader Lazar Koliševski as: "...one Bulgarian of no significance for the liberation struggles...".[127] But on 7 October 1946, under pressure from Moscow,[128] as part of the policy to foster the development of Macedonian national consciousness, Delchev's remains were transported to Skopje.[129] On the occasion of sending the remains, the regent and a member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Todor Pavlov presented a speech on a solemn assembly held in the National Theater in Sofia.[130] On 10 October, the bones were enshrined in a marble sarcophagus in the yard of the church "Sveti Spas", where they have remained since.[131] At the time of the Tito–Stalin split in 1948, Bulgaria broke its relationship with Yugoslavia because "nationalist elements" had "managed to reach a dominant position in the leadership" of the CPY. The then Macedonian communist elite discussed the idea to scrap the name of Gotse Delchev from the anthem of the country, as he was suspected again of being Bulgarophile element, but this idea was finally abandoned.[132] Afterwards Bulgaria gradually shifted to its previous view, that Macedonian Slavs are in fact Bulgarians.[133] Yugoslav authorities, after realizing that the Balkan collective memory had already accepted as Bulgarians the heroes of the Macedonian revolutionary movement, exerted efforts to claim Delchev for the Macedonian national cause.[134] They started measures that would overcome the pro-Bulgarian feeling among parts of its population.[135] The new Communist authorities persecuted systematically and exterminated the right-wing nationalists with the charges of "great-Bulgarian chauvinism".[136] The next task was persecution of older left-wing politicians, who were at some degree pro-Bulgarian oriented. They were purged from their positions, arrested and imprisoned.[137]

As a consequence, Bulgarophobia increased in Vardar Macedonia to the level of state ideology.[138] Aiming to enforce the belief Delchev was an ethnic Macedonian, all documents written by him in standard Bulgarian were translated into standardized in 1945 Macedonian, and presented as originals.[139] The new rendition of history reappraised the 1903 Ilinden Uprising as an anti-Bulgarian revolt.[140] The past was systematically falsified to conceal the truth, that most of the well-known Macedonians had felt themselves to be Bulgarians.[141] As result, Delchev was declared an ethnic Macedonian hero, and Macedonian school textbooks began even to hint at Bulgarian complicity in his death.[142] This new Delchev myth was largely the creation of the Yugoslav communists, hence it would hardly have been in the interests of the pre-WWII Yugoslav authorities to promote it. To Yugoslav communists he was the ideal hero around which to build the Macedonian nation.[143] In the People's Republic of Bulgaria, the situation was more complex, and before 1960 Delchev was given mostly regional recognition in Pirin Macedonia. Afterwards, orders from the highest political level were given to reincorporate the Macedonian revolutionary movement as part of the Bulgarian historiography, and to prove the Bulgarian credentials of its historical leaders. SInce 1960, there have been long-going unproductive debates between the ruling Communist parties in Bulgaria and the Yugoslavia about the ethnic affiliation of Delchev. Delchev was described in SR Macedonia not only as an anti-Ottoman freedom fighter, but also as a hero, who had opposed the aggressive aspirations of the pro-Bulgarian factions in the liberation movement.[144] The claims on Delchev's Bulgarian self-identification, thus were portrayed as recent Bulgarian chauvinist attitude of long provenance.[145] Nonetheless, the Bulgarian side made in 1978 for the first time the proposal that some historical personalities (e.g. Gotse Delchev) could be regarded as belonging to the shared historical heritage of the two peoples, but that proposal did not appeal to the Yugoslavs.[146]

After the Fall of communism
The bell tower among ruins of the village of Banitsa, where Delchev was buried until 1913.
The moving of the remains of Delchev to the seat of the Ilinden Organization in Sofia in 1923. Until then, the bones were kept in the house of the revolutionary Mihail Chakov in Plovdiv, and between 1913-1919 in his home in Xanthi (then part of Bulgaria).[147]
The restored grave-place of Delchev among the ruins of Banitsa during World War II Bulgarian annexation of Northern Greece.
The moving of the remains of Delchev from Sofia to Skopje in October 1946. This was a failed effort of Stalin to placate Tito, pressuring the Bulgarian communists to allow this,[148] as part of the then campaign of recognizing the Macedonian national identity.[149] The Bulgarian caption reads about the great Macedonian revolutionary Delchev, etc.[150]
See also: Bulgaria–North Macedonia relations

Following the breakup of Yugoslavia and the fall of Communism, some new attempts were made from Bulgarian officials for joint celebration with the newly established Republic of Macedonia, of the common IMRO heroes, e.g. Delchev, but they all were rejected as politically unacceptable, and as threatening the Macedonian national identity.[151][152][153]

Recently the Macedonian political elite has been interested in a debate about the national historical narrative with Bulgaria in relation with its frozen candidatures for joining the European Union and NATO membership. On 2 August 2017, the Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and his Macedonian colleague Zoran Zaev placed wreaths at the grave of Gotse Delchev on the occasion of the 114th anniversary of the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising, after the previous day, both have signed a treaty for friendship and cooperation between the neighboring states.[154] On its ground a joint commission on historical issues was formed in 2018. This intergovernmental commission is a forum where controversial historical issues are raised, to resolve the problematic readings. However, the commission has made a little progress for one year, due to a Macedonian opposition and especially in the case of Delchev. The Bulgarian part of the commission pointed to Delchev's own writings, where he declared himself as a Bulgarian, and clarified the fact that Delchev had Bulgarian identity, doesn't mean that North Macedonia has no right to honour him as its own national hero, and both countries may celebrate him as a common historical figure. However the historians from Macedonian side maintained, that if they "surrender" Gotse, the Macedonian national identity would go bust.[155] Practically since its creation, the Macedonian historiography held as its central principle, that Macedonian history is distinctively different from that of Bulgaria and its primary goal was to build a separate Macedonian consciousness, based on "anti-Bulgarian" basis, and to sever any ties with Bulgarian people.[156] In fact, because in many documents from the 19th century the Macedonian Slavs were referred to as "Bulgarian", Macedonian scientists argue that they were "Macedonian", regardless of what is written in the records.[157] Macedonian member from the joint historical commission, has even stated that if Delchev would be recognized as Bulgarian, then his memory will not make sense to be honored there.[158] Another Macedonian member from the joint commission has openly claimed in a TV-interview, that there aren't any proves, that Delchev ever identified as Bulgarian.[159]

As result on 9 June 2019 Bulgaria's Defence Minister, Krasimir Karakachanov, warned that the work of the joint history commission had "stalled" over the issue of Gotse Delchev. Subsequently, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva warned North Macedonia, Bulgaria will withdraw from the joint commission, unless enough progress is made on the issue of Delchev's historical legacy. Finally, the PM Borisov declared on 20 June 2019 that anti-Bulgarian rhetoric and appropriation of Bulgaria's history as its own from North Macedonia "must stop".[160] On the same day North Macedonia's President Stevo Pendarovski warned about the tensions between the two countries over their history, and about possible Bulgarian block of North Macedonia's candidature in EU.[161] The PM Zoran Zaev replied that both countries need to mature together. Foreign Minister of North Macedonia, Nikola Dimitrov, said he expects an understanding will be reached between both countries on historical issues.[162] Thus Pendarovski publicly affirmed, that undoubtedly Delchev self-identified as a Bulgarian, compromising that: he supported the idea of an independent Macedonian state.[163] In fact, the idea about Independent Macedonia was a subsequent project from the interwar period.[164] Bulgarian politicians reacted positively to Pendarovski's statement, insisting however, that this only act is not enough and the bilateral commission must confirm the Bulgarian identity of many historical figures from 19th and first half of the 20th century.[165] According to the President Rumen Radev, Bulgaria will support North Macedonia's candidature in the EU, but it is important Skopje to end the embezzlement of Bulgarian history. The Foreign Minister Zaharieva added, that Delchev is a common hero, part of Bulgarian and Macedonian history. The fact, he was a Bulgarian, who struggled for the autonomy for Macedonia and Adrianople regions, must unite both countries, not divide them. Afterwards PM Zaev has recognized that in the past Macedonia presented parts from the history of its Balkan neighbors as its own, but this process has been suspended.[166]

Surprisingly, in late September 2019, the President Pendarovski gave a new interview in which he gave up his words about Delchev. In it he implied that Delcev was pressured to falsely declare himself as a Bulgarian, while actually having an ethnic Macedonian identity. Pendarovski compared Delcev with present-day thousands of Macedonians who get Bulgarian citizenship, which allow them access to the EU, after they declare themselves as Bulgarians by origin. "I was felt sick when I saw the video", said Bulgarian MEP Andrey Kovatchev, who praised Pendarvski's former claims.[167] Bulgaria's reaction was not delayed. Its IMRO-BNM Deputy PM — Karakachanov, announced that Bulgaria must not to back the EU accession of the former Yugoslav republic: "until all falsifications of history have been cleared up".[168] As result in the early October, Bulgaria has set a lot of tough terms for North Macedonia's EU progress. The Bulgarian government accepted an ultimate "Framework Position", where has warned that Bulgaria will not allow the EU integration of North Macedonia to be accompanied by European legitimization of an anti-Bulgarian ideology, sponsored by Skopje authorities. In the list are more than 20 demands and a timetable to fulfill them, during the process of North Macedonia's accession negotiations. Among others, Bulgaria insists on the recognition of the Bulgarian character of the IMRO itself, the Ilinden uprising, all the Macedonian revolutionaries from that time, including Delchev, etc. It states that the rewriting of the history of part of the Bulgarian people after 1944 was one of the pillars of the bulgarophobic agenda of then Yugoslav communism. Bulgarian National Assembly voted on 10 October and approved this "Framework Position" put forward by the government on the EU accession of North Macedonia.[169] On November 17, 2020, Bulgaria has blocked the official start of the EU accession talks with North Macedonia,[170] because of the ongoing historical negationism there, ignoring any Bulgarian identity, culture and legacy in the region of Macedonia.[171]

Meanwhile, in Skopje are growing concerns, that the negotiations with Bulgaria over the "common history", may lead to rise of extreme nationalism, political crisis, and even internal clashes.

Delchev's views
Excerpt from the statute of BMARC, whose co-author was G. Delchev.[172]
Excerpt from the statute of BMARC, with corrections made by hand, personally by Gotse Delchev with intention to work out the new statute of the SMARO.
Excerpt from the statute of SMARO, whose author was G. Delchev.[173]

The international, cosmopolitan views of Delchev could be summarized in his proverbial sentence: "I understand the world solely as a field for cultural competition among the peoples".[174] In the late 19th century the anarchists and socialists from Bulgaria linked their struggle closely with the revolutionary movements in Macedonia and Thrace.[175] Thus, as a young cadet in Sofia Delchev became a member of a left circle, where he was strongly influenced by the modern than Marxist and Bakunin's ideas.[176] His views were formed also under the influence of the ideas of earlier anti-Ottoman fighters as Levski, Botev, and Stoyanov, who were among the founders of the Bulgarian Internal Revolutionary Organization, the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee and the Bulgarian Secret Central Revolutionary Committee, respectively.[177] Later he participated in the Internal organization's struggle and as well educated leader, became one of its theoreticians and co-author of the BMARC's statute from 1896.[178] Developing his ideas further in 1902 he took the step, together with other left functionaries, of changing its nationalistic character, which determined that members of the organization can be only Bulgarians. The new supra-nationalistic statute renamed it to Secret Macedono-Adrianopolitan Revolutionary Organization (SMARO),[179] which was to be an insurgent organization, open to all Macedonians and Thracians regardless of nationality, who wished to participate in the movement for their autonomy.[180] This scenario was partially facilitated by the Treaty of Berlin (1878), according to which Macedonia and Adrianople areas were given back from Bulgaria to the Ottomans, but especially by its unrealized 23rd. article, which promised future autonomy for unspecified territories in European Turkey, settled with Christian population.[181] In general, an autonomous status was presumed to imply a special kind of constitution of the region, a reorganization of gendarmerie, broader representation of the local Christian population in it as well as in all the administration, similarly to what happened in the short-lived Eastern Rumelia. However, there was not a clear political agenda behind IMRO's idea about autonomy and its final outcome, after the expected dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.[182] Delcev, like other left-wing activists, vaguely determined the bonds in the future common Macedonian-Adrianople autonomous region on the one hand,[183] and on the other between it, the Principality of Bulgaria, and de facto annexed Eastern Rumelia.[184] Even the possibility that Bulgaria could be absorbed into a future autonomous Macedonia, rather than the reverse, was discussed.[185] It is claimed that the personal view of the convinced republican Delchev,[186] was much more likely to see inclusion in a future Balkan Confederative Republic,[187][188] or eventually an incorporation into Bulgaria.[189][190][191] Both ideas were probably influenced by the views of the founders of the organization.[192] The ideas of a separate Macedonian nation and language were as yet promoted only by small circles of intellectuals in Delchev's time,[193] and failed to gain wide popular support.[194] As a whole the idea of autonomy was strictly political and did not imply a secession from Bulgarian ethnicity.[195] In fact, for militants such as Delchev and other leftists, that participated in the national movement retaining a political outlook, national liberation meant "radical political liberation through shaking off the social shackles".[196] There aren't any indications suggesting his doubt about the Bulgarian ethnic character of the Macedonian Slavs at that time.[197] Delchev also used the Bulgarian standard language, and he was not in any way interested in the creation of separate Macedonian language.[198] The Bulgarian ethnic self-identification of Delchev has been recognized as from leading international researchers of the Macedonian Question,[199] as well as from part of the Macedonian historical scholarship and political elite, although reluctantly.[200][201][202][203] However, despite his Bulgarian loyalty, he was against any chauvinistic propaganda and nationalism.[204] According to him, no outside force could or would help the Organization and it ought to rely only upon itself and only upon its own will and strength.[205] He thought that any intervention by Bulgaria would provoke intervention by the neighboring states as well, and could result in Macedonia and Thrace being torn apart. That is why the peoples of these two regions had to win their own freedom, within the frontiers of an autonomous Macedonian-Adrianople state.[206]

Despite the efforts of the post-1945 Macedonian historiography to represent Delchev as a Macedonian separatist rather than a Bulgarian nationalist, Delchev himself has stated: "...We are Bulgarians and all suffer from one common disease [e.g., the Ottoman rule]" and "Our task is not to shed the blood of Bulgarians, of those who belong to the same people that we serve".[207]

Legacy
Commemorative medal of Delchev issued in 1904 in Bulgaria, designed by the painter Dimitar Diolev. [208]

Delchev is today regarded both in Bulgaria and in North Macedonia as an important national hero, and both nations see him as part of their own national history.[209] His memory is honoured especially in the Bulgarian part of Macedonia and among the descendants of Bulgarian refugees from other parts of the region, where he is regarded as the most important revolutionary from the second generation of freedom fighters.[210] His name appears also in the national anthem of North Macedonia: "Denes nad Makedonija". There are two towns named in his honour: Gotse Delchev in Bulgaria and Delčevo in North Macedonia. There are also two peaks named after Delchev: Gotsev Vrah, the summit of Slavyanka Mountain, and Delchev Vrah or Delchev Peak on Livingston Island, South Shetland Islands in Antarctica, which was named after him by the scientists from the Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition. Delchev Ridge on Livingston Island bears also his name. The Goce Delčev University of Štip in North Macedonia carries his name too. Today many artifacts related to Delchev's activity are stored in different museums across Bulgaria and North Macedonia.

During the time of SFR Yugoslavia, a boulevard in Belgrade was named after Delchev. In 2016 its name was changed to Fyodor Tolbukhin, who led the Belgrade operation at the end of the Second World War. The motivation of the municipal authorities was that Delchev was not an ethnic Macedonian revolutionary, but an activist of an anti-Serbian organization with pro-Bulgarian orientation.[211]

In Greece the official appeals from Bulgarian side to the authorities to install a memorial plaque on his place of death are not answered. The memorial plaques set periodically by enthusiast Bulgarians afterwards are removed. Bulgarian tourists are restrained occasionally to visit the place.[212][213][214]

See also

Memorials

Notes
  1. Per Julian Allan Brooks' thesis the term ‘Macedo-Bulgarian’ refers to the Exarchist population in Macedonia which is alternatively called ‘Bulgarian’ and ‘Macedonian’ in the documents. For more see: Managing Macedonia: British Statecraft, Intervention and 'Proto-peacekeeping' in Ottoman Macedonia, 1902-1905. Department of History, Simon Fraser University, 2013, p. 18. The designation ‘Macedo-Bulgarian’ is used also by M. Şükrü Hanioğlu and Ryan Gingeras. See: M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902-1908 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 244; Ryan Gingeras, “A Break in the Storm: Reconsidering Sectarian, Violence in Ottoman Macedonia During the Young Turk Revolution” The MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies 3 (Spring 2003): 1. Gingeras notes he uses the hyphenated term to refer to those who “professed an allegiance to the Bulgarian Exarch.” Mehmet Hacısalihoğlu has used in his study "Yane Sandanski as a political leader in Macedonia in the era of the Young Turks" the terms Bulgarians-Macedonians and Bulgarian Macedonians; (Cahiers balkaniques [En ligne], 40, 2012, Jeunes-Turcs en Macédoine et en Ionie).
  2. Per Loring Danforth's article about the IMRO in Encyclopedia Britannica Online, its leaders, including Delchev, had a dual identity - Macedonian regional and Bulgarian national. According to Paul Robert Magocsi in many circumstances this might seem a normal phenomenon, such as by the residents of the pre–World War II Macedonia, who identified as a Macedonian and Bulgarian (or "Macedono-Bulgarian"). Per Bernard Lory there were tho different kinds of Bulgarian identity at the early 20th century: the first kind was a vague form that grew up during the 19th century Bulgarian National Revival and united most of the Macedonian and other Slavs in the Ottoman Empire. The second kind Bulgarian identity was the more concrete and strong and promoted by the authorities in Sofia among the Bulgarian population. Per Julian Allan Brooks' thesis there were some indications to suggest the existence of inchoate Macedonian national identity then, however the evidence is rather fleeting. For more see: Paul Robert Magocsi, Carpathian Rus': Interethnic Coexistence without Violence, p. 453, in Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands with editors, Omer Bartov, Eric D. Weitz, Indiana University Press, 2013, ISBN 0253006317, pp. 449-462.
  3. Per John Van Antwerp Fine until the late 19th century both outside observers and those Macedonian Bulgarians who had an ethnic consciousness believed that their group, which is now two separate nationalities, comprised a single people, the Bulgarians. According to Loring M. Danforth at the end of the World War I there were very few historians or ethnographers, who claimed that a separate Macedonian nation existed. It seems most likely that at this time many of the Slavs of Macedonia in rural areas, had not yet developed a firm sense of national identity at all. Of those who had developed then some sense of national identity, the majority considered themselves to be Bulgarians... The question as of whether a Macedonian nation actually existed in the 1940s when a Communist Yugoslavia decided to recognize one is difficult to answer. Some observers argue that even at this time it was doubtful whether the Slavs from Macedonia considered themselves to be a nationality separate from the Bulgarians. Per Stefan Troebst Macedonian nation, language, literature, history and church were not available in 1944, but since the creation of the Yugoslav Macedonia they were accomplished in a short time. For more, see: "The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century," University of Michigan Press, 1991, ISBN 0472081497, pp. 36–37; One Macedonia With Three Faces: Domestic Debates and Nation Concepts, in Intermarium; Columbia University; Volume 4, No. 3 (2000–2001), pp. 7-8; The Macedonian conflict: ethnic nationalism in a transnational world, Princeton University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-691-04356-6, pp. 65-66.
  4. Today, Delchev's identity is the subject of a dispute between Bulgaria and North Macedonia. According to the Bulgarian historian Stefan Dechev, who often has criticized the official Bulgarian historiography on the Macedonian issue, and this gave him a sympathy in North Macedonia, the Macedonian side wants to emphasize the work of Delchev and especially its importance from today perspective. This stems from the fundamental historical myth built on him in Communist Yugoslavia. It is about the desire to keep the nation building delusion, that in Delchev's time, there was already formed Macedonian national identity, and to preserve the image of Bulgaria as a demonized enemy. Nonetheless, there was really a regional Macedonian political identity then, and there is evidence of its opposition to the Bulgarian state sponsored nationalist propaganda. However ethnically, all the leaders and the activists of the IMRO at that time were Bulgarians. On the other side, is the unacceptable position of the Bulgarian historians, who insist that there is no need to determine exactly what complex identity Delchev really had, given that he was ethnically a Bulgarian. For more see: Стефан Дечев: Българската и македонската интерпретации на документите за Гоце Делчев са користни и непрофесионални, Marginalia, 14.09.2019; Бугарскиот историчар Дечев: Македонскиот јазик не може да биде само едноставен дијалект или регионална форма. Дек. 16, 2019, МКД.мк.

References
  1. For example, Gotse Delcev, a schoolmaster from Kukush (present-day Kilkis)... Anastasia Karakasidou, Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia, 1870-1990, University of Chicago Press, 2009, ISBN 0226424995, p. 282.
  2. The major precursors to Ottomanism were the Reformation Edict of 1856, which promised full equality regardless of religion, and the Ottoman Nationality Law of 1869, which created a common Ottoman citizenship, irrespective of religious or ethnic affiliation. The nationality legislation was a 19th-century concept, and the Ottoman Empire adopted it too early. The Ottoman Nationality Law appeared before any commonly-adopted international concept of the basic elements of this legislation. At that time Bulgaria was de jure vassal state under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire and the Ottoman passport gave privileges when traveling into the Ottoman provinces. There are often cases when it is reported that the Ottoman authorities detain and do not recognize the passports of Bulgarian subjects traveling in the Empire, forcing them to obtain Ottoman passports. For more see: Авторски колектив, Външната политика на България. Документи и материали. Том 1: 1879-1886, Наука и изкуство, София, 1978, стр. 417.
  3. Ивайло Дичев: Кокалите на Гоце: няма по-голям проблем от този! 01.10.2019 г. Дойче Веле.
  4. Poulton, Hugh (2000). Who are the Macedonians?. C. Hurst & Co. p. 53. ISBN 978-1-85065-534-3.
  5. Гоце Дѣлчевъ. Биография. П.К. Яворовъ, 1904.
  6. Keith Brown, The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation, Princeton University Press, 2018, ISBN 0691188432, p. 174; Bernard Lory, The Bulgarian-Macedonian Divergence, An Attempted Elucidation, INALCO, Paris in Developing Cultural Identity in the Balkans: Convergence Vs. Divergence with Raymond Detrez and Pieter Plas as ed., Peter Lang, 2005, ISBN 9052012970, pp. 165-193.
  7. The Making of a New Europe: R.W. Seton-Watson and the Last Years of Austria-Hungary, Hugh Seton-Watson, Christopher Seton-Watson, Methuen, 1981, ISBN 0416747302, p. 71.
  8. Dimitar Bechev, Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia, Scarecrow Press, 2009, ISBN 0810862956, p. VII.
  9. Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, written by Loring Danforth, an article in Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
  10. Bechev, Dimitar (2009). Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-6295-1., pp. 55-56
  11. Angelos Chotzidis, Anna Panagiōtopoulou, Vasilis Gounaris, The events of 1903 in Macedonia as presented in European diplomatic correspondence. Volume 3 of Museum of the Macedonian Struggle, 1993; ISBN 9608530334, p. 60.
  12. What was more, “the military” (SMAC) worked in close collaboration and mutual understanding with the “civilian” leaders of the IMARO. This is shown by the fact that, at the Sixth Macedonian Congress (held May 1–5, 1899), Sarafov was nominated for president and Gotse Delchev and Gyorche Petrov, external representatives of the “secret ones,” were elected full-right members of the SMAC. For more see: Peter Kardjilov, The Cinematographic Activities of Charles Rider Noble and John Mackenzie in the Balkans (Volume One); Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020, ISBN 1527550737, p. 5.
  13. From 1899 to 1901, the supreme committee provided subsidies to IMRO' s central committee, allowances for Delchev and Petrov in Sofia, and weapons for bands sent to the interior. Delchev and Petrov were elected full members of the supreme committee. For more see: Laura Beth Sherman, Fires on the Mountain: The Macedonian Revolutionary Movement and the Kidnapping of Ellen Stone, East European monographs, 1980, ISBN 0914710559, p. 18.
  14. Duncan M. Perry, The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian Liberation Movements, 1893-1903; Duke University Press, 1988, ISBN 0822308134, pp. 82-83.
  15. Susan K. Kinnell, People in World History, Volume 1; An Index to Biographies in History Journals and Dissertations Covering All Countries of the World Except Canada and the U.S, ISBN 0874365503, ABC-CLIO, 1989; p. 157.
  16. Delchev was born into a family of Bulgarian Uniates, who later switched to Bulgarian Еxarchists. For more see: Светозар Елдъров, Униатството в съдбата на България: очерци из историята на българската католическа църква от източен обред, Абагар, 1994, ISBN 9548614014, стр. 15.
  17. Todorova, Maria N. Bones of Contention: The Living Archive of Vasil Levski and the Making of Bulgaria's National Hero, Central European University Press, 2009, ISBN 9639776246, p. 76.
  18. Jelavich, Charles. The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804-1920, University of Washington Press, 1986, ISBN 0295803606, pp. 137-138.
  19. In Macedonia, the education race produced the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), which organized and carried out the Ilinden Uprising of 1903. Most of IMRO's founders and principal organizers were graduates of the Bulgarian Exarchate schools in Macedonia, who had become teachers and inspectors in the same system that had educated them. Frustrated with the pace of change, they organized and networked to develop their movement throughout the Bulgarian school system that employed them. The Exarchate schools were an ideal forum in which to propagate their cause, and the leading members were able to circulate to different posts, to spread the word, and to build up supplies and stores for the anticipated uprising. As it became more powerful, IMRO was able to impress upon the Exarchate its wishes for teacher and inspector appointments in Macedonia. For more see: Julian Brooks, The Education Race for Macedonia, 1878—1903 in The Journal of Modern Hellenism, Vol 31 (2015) pp. 23-58.
  20. Raymond Detrez Detrez, Raymond. The A to Z of Bulgaria, Scarecrow Press, 2010, ISBN 0810872021, p. 135.
  21. IMRO group modeled itself after the revolutionary organization of Vasil Levski and other noted Bulgarian revolutionaries like Hristo Botev and Georgi Benkovski, each of whom was a leader during the earlier Bulgarian revolutionary movement. Duncan M. Perry, The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian Liberation Movements, 1893-1903, Duke University Press, 1988, ISBN 0822308134, pp. 39-40.
  22. Jonathan Bousfield; Dan Richardson; Richard Watkins (2002). The Rough Guide to Bulgaria. Rough Guides. pp. 449–450. ISBN 1858288827. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
  23. "The French referred to 'Macedoine' as an area of mixed races — and named a salad after it. One doubts that Gotse Delchev approved of this descriptive, but trivial approach." Johnson, Wes. Balkan inferno: betrayal, war and intervention, 1990-2005, Enigma Books, 2007, ISBN 1929631634, p. 80.
  24. "The Bulgarian historians, such as Veselin Angelov, Nikola Achkov and Kosta Tzarnushanov continue to publish their research backed with many primary sources to prove that the term 'Macedonian' when applied to Slavs has always meant only a regional identity of the Bulgarians." Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900-1996, Chris Kostov, Peter Lang, 2010, ISBN 3034301960, p. 112.
  25. "Gotse Delchev, may, as Macedonian historians claim, have 'objectively' served the cause of Macedonian independence, but in his letters he called himself a Bulgarian. In other words it is not clear that the sense of Slavic Macedonian identity at the time of Delchev was in general developed." Moulakis, Athanasios. "The Controversial Ethnogenesis of Macedonia", European Political Science (2010) 9, ISSN 1680-4333. p. 497.
  26. "Slavic Macedonian intellectuals felt loyalty to Macedonia as a region or territory without claiming any specifically Macedonian ethnicity. The primary aim of this Macedonian regionalism was a multi-ethnic alliance against the Ottoman rule." Ethnologia Balkanica, vol. 10–11, Association for Balkan Anthropology, Bŭlgarska akademiia na naukite, Universität München, Lit Verlag, Alexander Maxwell, 2006, p. 133.
  27. "The Bulgarian loyalties of IMRO's leadership, however, coexisted with the desire for multi-ethnic Macedonia to enjoy administrative autonomy. When Delchev was elected to IMRO's Central Committee in 1896, he opened membership in IMRO to all inhabitants of European Turkey since the goal was to assemble all dissatisfied elements in Macedonia and Adrianople regions regardless of ethnicity or religion in order to win through revolution full autonomy for both regions." Region, Regional Identity and Regionalism in Southeastern Europe, Klaus Roth, Ulf Brunnbauer, LIT Verlag Münster, 2009, ISBN 3825813878, p. 136.
  28. Lieberman, Benjamin (2013). Terrible Fate: Ethnic Cleansing in the Making of Modern Europe. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-3038-5., p. 56
  29. In an article called "Political separatism," published on 7 June 1902, in the newspaper Pravo, that was the unofficial tribune of the IMRO, the revolutionaries promoted as a basic slogan William Gladstone's expression "Macedonia for the Macedonians", held to express the principle of autonomy and of "political separatism." For more see: Tchavdar Marinov, We, the Macedonians, The Paths of Macedonian Supra-Nationalism (1878–1912) in: Mishkova Diana ed., 2009, We, the People: Politics of National Peculiarity in Southeastern Europe, Central European University Press, ISBN 9639776289, pp. 117-120.
  30. Peter Vasiliadis (1989). Whose are you? identity and ethnicity among the Toronto Macedonians. AMS Press. p. 77. ISBN 0404194680. Retrieved 5 July 2013.
  31. The earliest document which talks about the autonomy of Macedonia and Thrace into the Ottoman Empire is the resolution of the First congress of the Supreme Macedonian Committee held in Sofia in 1895. От София до Костур -освободителните борби на българите от Македония в спомени на дейци от Върховния македоно-одрински комитет, Ива Бурилкова, Цочо Билярски - съставители, ISBN 9549983234, Синева, 2003, стр. 6.
  32. Opfer, Björn (2005). Im Schatten des Krieges: Besatzung oder Anschluss - Befreiung oder Unterdrückung? ; eine komparative Untersuchung über die bulgarische Herrschaft in Vardar-Makedonien 1915-1918 und 1941-1944. LIT Verlag Münster. ISBN 978-3-8258-7997-6., pp. 27-28
  33. The revolutionary committee dedicated itself to fight for "full political autonomy for Macedonia and Adrianople." Since they sought autonomy only for those areas inhabited by Bulgarians, they denied other nationalities membership in IMRO. According to Article 3 of the statutes, "any Bulgarian could become a member". For more see: Laura Beth Sherman, Fires on the mountain: the Macedonian revolutionary movement and the kidnapping of Ellen Stone, Volume 62, East European Monographs, 1980, ISBN 0914710559, p. 10.
  34. In spite of the fact that in the Bulgarian schools of Salonica and Sofia he had been educated in the spirit of nationalism, Delcheff looked upon all races in Macedonia as his brothers and fellow-countrymen. He was struggling for the freedom not only of the Macedonian Bulgarians, but also of all the nationalities inhabiting Macedonia. Christ Anastasoff, The Tragic Peninsula: A History of the Macedonian Movement for Independence Since 1878, Blackwell Wielandy Company, 1938, p. 33.
  35. "One of IMRO's leaders, Gotsé Delchev, whose nom de guerre was Ahil (Achilles), is regarded by both Macedonians and Bulgarians as a national hero. He seems to have identified himself as a Bulgarian and to have regarded the Slavs of Macedonia as Bulgarians." Encyclopædia Britannica online, article Republic of Macedonia, section: History, subsection: The independence movement.
  36. "A more modern national hero is Gotse Delchev, leader of the turn-of-the-century Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), which was actually a largely pro-Bulgarian organization but is claimed as the founding Macedonian national movement." Kaufman, Stuart J. Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War. Cornell University Press, 2001, ISBN 0801487366, p. 193.
  37. Ѓоргиев: Гоце Делчев гине за Македонија и од тој аспект не ... Локално, 30/04/2020.
  38. Колозова како Пендаровски и Малески: Не е спорно дека Делчев се декларирал како Бугарин. November 3, 2020, Express.mk.
  39. Бугарско – македонскиот договор за добрососедство и неговите ефекти врз европското проширување. October 30, 2020, Civilmedia.mk.
  40. The origins of the official Macedonian national narrative are to be sought in the establishment in 1944 of the Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. This open acknowledgment of the Macedonian national identity led to the creation of a revisionist historiography whose goal has been to affirm the existence of the Macedonian nation through the history. Macedonian historiography is revising a considerable part of ancient, medieval, and modern histories of the Balkans. Its goal is to claim for the Macedonian peoples a considerable part of what the Greeks consider Greek history and the Bulgarians Bulgarian history. The claim is that most of the Slavic population of Macedonia in the 19th and first half of the 20th century was ethnic Macedonian. For more see: Victor Roudometof, Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict: Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002, ISBN 0275976483, p. 58; Victor Roudometof, Nationalism and Identity Politics in the Balkans: Greece and the Macedonian Question in Journal of Modern Greek Studies 14.2 (1996) 253-301.
  41. Yugoslav Communists recognized the existence of a Macedonian nationality during WWII to quiet fears of the Macedonian population that a communist Yugoslavia would continue to follow the former Yugoslav policy of forced Serbianization. Hence, for them to recognize the inhabitants of Macedonia as Bulgarians would be tantamount to admitting that they should be part of the Bulgarian state. For that the Yugoslav Communists were most anxious to mold Macedonian history to fit their conception of Macedonian consciousness. The treatment of Macedonian history in Communist Yugoslavia had the same primary goal as the creation of the Macedonian language: to de-Bulgarize the Macedonian Slavs and to create a separate national consciousness that would inspire identification with Yugoslavia. For more see: Stephen E. Palmer, Robert R. King, Yugoslav communism and the Macedonian question, Archon Books, 1971, ISBN 0208008217, Chapter 9: The encouragement of Macedonian culture.
  42. The past was systematically falsified to conceal the fact that many prominent ‘Macedonians’ had supposed themselves to be Bulgarians, and generations of students were taught the pseudo-history of the Macedonian nation. The mass media and education were the key to this process of national acculturation, speaking to people in a language that they came to regard as their Macedonian mothertongue, even if it was perfectly understood in Sofia. For more see: Michael L. Benson, Yugoslavia: A Concise History, Edition 2, Springer, 2003, ISBN 1403997209, p. 89.
  43. Initially the membership in the IMRO was restricted only for Bulgarians. Its first name was "Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees", which was later changed several times. IMRO was active not only in Macedonia but also in Thrace (the Vilayet of Adrianople). Since its early name emphasized the Bulgarian nature of the organization by linking the inhabitants of Thrace and Macedonia to Bulgaria, these facts are still difficult to be explained from the Macedonian historiography. They suggest that IMRO revolutionaries in the Ottoman period did not differentiate between ‘Macedonians’ and ‘Bulgarians’. Moreover, as their own writings attest, they often saw themselves and their compatriots as ‘Bulgarians’. All of them wrote in standard Bulgarian language. For more see: Brunnbauer, Ulf (2004) Historiography, Myths and the Nation in the Republic of Macedonia. In: Brunnbauer, Ulf, (ed.) (Re)Writing History. Historiography in Southeast Europe after Socialism. Studies on South East Europe, vol. 4. LIT, Münster, pp. 165-200 ISBN 382587365X.
  44. Danforth, Loring M. (1997). The Macedonian conflict: ethnic nationalism in a transnational world. Princeton University Press. p. 64. ISBN 0691043566. The political and military leaders of the Slavs of Macedonia at the turn of the century seem not to have heard Misirkov's call for a separate Macedonian national identity; they continued to identify themselves in a national sense as Bulgarian rather than Macedonians.[...]In spite of these political differences, both groups, including those who advocated an independent Macedonian state and opposed the idea of a greater Bulgaria, never seem to have doubted "the predominantly Bulgarian character of the population of Macedonia"[...]Even Gotse Delchev, the famous Macedonian revolutionary leader, whose nom de guerre was Ahil (Achilles), refers to "the Slavs of Macedonia as 'Bulgarians' in an offhanded manner without seeming to indicate that such a designation was a point of contention" (Perry 1988:23). In his correspondence Gotse Delchev often states clearly and simply, "We are Bulgarians" (Mac Dermott 1978:273).
  45. Somel, Selcuk Aksin (2010). The A to Z of the Ottoman Empire. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-1-4617-3176-4. p. 168.
  46. In his correspondence Gotse Delchev often states clearly and simply: "We are Bulgarians" (MacDermott 1978: 192, 273).
  47. After 1945, in ex-Serbian Macedonia, the Yugoslav authorities rehabilitated the idea of a separate Macedonian language, identity and consciousness, sponsoring the creation of a separate Macedonian Church. At the same time, official history rehabilitated only certain VMRO-era revolutionaries, like Goce Delcev, Nikola Karev and Dame Gruev, who they deemed deserving because they were not associated with the idea of union of Macedonia with Bulgaria. Meanwhile, most emphasis was placed on celebrating the joint Yugoslav history of the World War II Communist struggle. Other VMRO figures, like Todor Aleksandrov or Ivan Mihajlov remained blacklisted owing to their strong pro-Bulgarian stands. Historians today agree that the truth was not so black-and-white. Per Prof. Todor Cepreganov almost all Macedonian revolutionaries from that era at some point of their life took pro-Bulgarian stands or pronounced themselves as Bulgarians and this fact is not disputed. See: Sinisa Jakov Marusic, New Statue Awakens Past Quarrels in Macedonia, in Balkan Transitional Justice - BIRN, 13 July 2012.
  48. The President Stevo Pendarovski: Gotse Delchev declared himself as Bulgarian and struggled for an independent Macedonian state. (Video) 360 степени, 21 јуни, 2019.
  49. Ангел Петров, Политическа буря в Скопие - президентски съветник настоява, че Гоце Делчев е българин. в-к Дневник, 02 май 2020.
  50. Roumen Daskalov, Diana Mishkova. Entangled Histories of the Balkans Volume Two. BRILL, 2013, ISBN 9004261915, p. 503.
  51. "The IMARO activists saw the future autonomous Macedonia as a multinational polity, and did not pursue the self-determination of Macedonian Slavs as a separate ethnicity. Therefore, Macedonian was an umbrella term covering Greeks, Bulgarians, Turks, Vlachs, Albanians, Serbs, Jews, and so on." Bechev, Dimitar. Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia, Historical Dictionaries of Europe, Scarecrow Press, 2009, ISBN 0810862956, Introduction.
  52. "Until the late 19th century both outside observers and those Bulgaro-Macedonians who had an ethnic consciousness believed that their group, which is now two separate nationalities, comprised a single people, the Bulgarians. Thus the reader should ignore references to ethnic Macedonians in the Middle ages which appear in some modern works. In the Middle ages and into the 19th century, the term ‘Macedonian’ was used entirely in reference to a geographical region. Anyone who lived within its confines, regardless of nationality could be called a Macedonian. Nevertheless, the absence of a national consciousness in the past is no grounds to reject the Macedonians as a nationality today." "The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century," John Van Antwerp Fine, University of Michigan Press, 1991, ISBN 0472081497, pp. 36–37.
  53. During the 20th century, Slavo-Macedonian national feeling shifted. At the beginning of the 20th century, Slavic patriots in Macedonia felt a strong attachment to Macedonia as a multi-ethnic homeland... Most of these Macedonian Slavs also saw themselves as Bulgarians. By the middle of the 20th. century, however Macedonian patriots began to see Macedonian and Bulgarian loyalties as mutually exclusive. Regional Macedonian nationalism had become ethnic Macedonian nationalism... This transformation shows that the content of collective loyalties can shift. Klaus Roth, Ulf Brunnbauer. Region, Regional Identity and Regionalism in Southeastern Europe, Ethnologia Balkanica Series. LIT Verlag Münster, 2010, ISBN 3825813878, p. 127.
  54. Стефан Дечев, Политическият македонизъм и българската политика към Македония. 19.09.2019 г., сп. Култура.
  55. "We, the People: Politics of National Peculiarity in Southeastern Europe", Diana Miškova, Central European University Press, 2009, ISBN 9639776289, p. 129.
  56. Roumen Dontchev Daskalov, Tchavdar Marinov. Histories of the Balkans: Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies. Balkan Studies Library, BRILL, 2013, ISBN 900425076X. pp. 300-303.
  57. Anastasia Karakasidou, Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia, 1870-1990, University of Chicago Press, 2009, ISBN 0226424995, p. 100.
  58. İpek Yosmaoğlu, Blood Ties: Religion, Violence and the Politics of Nationhood in Ottoman Macedonia, 1878–1908, Cornell University Press, 2013, ISBN 0801469791, p. 16.
  59. Dimitris Livanios, The Macedonian Question: Britain and the Southern Balkans 1939-1949, Oxford Historical Monographs, OUP Oxford, 2008, ISBN 0191528722, p. 17.
  60. Yordan Badev recalls in his memoirs that Gotse Delchev, Boris Sarafov, Efrem Chuchkov, and Boris Drangov had organized a group of Bulgarians born in Macedonia to propagate for the future unification of Macedonia and Bulgaria among the cadets of the military school in Sofia. For more see: Katrin Bozeva-Abazi, The Shaping of Bulgarian and Serbian National Identities, 1800s-1900s, thesis, McGill University Department of History, 2003, p. 189; Kosta Tsipushev recalls how, when he and some friends asked Gotsé why they were fighting for the autonomy of Macedonia and Thrace instead of their liberation and reunification with the motherland, he replied: Comrades, can't you see that we are now the slaves not of the Turkish state, which is in the process of disintegration, but of the Great Powers in Europe, before whom Turkey signed her total capitulation in Berlin. That is why we have to struggle for the autonomy of Macedonia and Thrace, in order to preserve them in their entirety, as a stage towards their reunification with our common Bulgarian fatherland... For more see: (MacDermott 1978:322); Pavlos Kyrou (Pavel Kirov) from Zhelevo claims in his memoirs that once, when Delchev came from Bulgaria, he met him in Konomladi. Delchev insisted there that Greek priests and schoolmasters are obstacles. He maintained also that all the local Slavophones are Bulgarians and they must work for Bulgarian cause, because its army will come and help them to throw off the Turkish yoke. For more see: Allen Upward, The East End of Europe, 1908: The Report of an Unofficial Mission to the European Provinces of Turkey on the Eve of the Revolution (Classic Reprint), BiblioBazaar, 2015, ISBN 1340987104, p. 326; In the memories of Andon Kyoseto, it is alleged that Delchev explained him that SMARO cannot win full freedom for Macedonia, but it will fight at least for autonomy. The ultimate goal of the Organization, according to Delchev, is a secrecy, but one day, sooner or later, Macedonia will unite itself with Bulgaria, and Greece and Serbia should not doubt in that. For more see: Б. Мирчев, Из спомените на Андон Лазов - Кьосето, сп. Родина, г. VІ, бр. 1, октомври 1931, стр. 12-14.; On 12 January 1903 his fellow Peyo Yavorov recorded one of Delchev's last messages in his shorthand notes, when they crossеd the misty border of Bulgaria to the Ottoman Empire entering Macedonia, namely: "I pointed out the misty area on Delchev, who was close to me and I said: Look, Macedonia welcomes us mourning!" But he answered: “We will tear away this veil and the sun of freedom will arise, but it will be a Bulgarian sun”. For more see: Милкана Бошнакова, Личните бележници на П. К. Яворов, Издателство: Захарий Стоянов, ISBN 9789540901374, 2008.
  61. Robert D. Kaplan, Balkan ghosts: a journey through history, Vintage books, 1994, ISBN 0-679-74981-0, p. 58.
  62. Vacalopoulos, Apostolos. Modern history of Macedonia (1830-1912), From the birth of the Greek state until the Liberation. Thessaloniki: Barbounakis, 1989, pp. 61-62
  63. An 1873 Ottoman study, published in 1878 as "Ethnographie des Vilayets d'Andrinople, de Monastir et de Salonique", concluded that the population of Kilkis consisted of 1,170 households, of which there were 5,235 Bulgarian inhabitants, 155 Muslims and 40 Romani people. "Македония и Одринско. Статистика на населението от 1873 г." Macedonian Scientific Institute, Sofia, 1995, pp.160-161.
  64. A Vasil Kanchov study of 1900 counted 7,000 Bulgarian and 750 Turkish inhabitants in the town. Macedonia. Ethnography and Statistics. Sofia, 1900, p. 164.
  65. Aarbakke, Vemund. Ethnic rivalry and the quest for Macedonia, 1870-1913. East European Monographs, 2003, ISBN 0-88033-527-0, p. 132.
  66. Khristov, Khristo Dechkov. The Bulgarian Nation During the National Revival Period. Institut za istoria, Izd-vo na Bŭlgarskata akademia na naukite, 1980, str. 293.
  67. R. J. Crampton (2007). Bulgaria. Oxford History of Modern Europe. Oxford University Press. pp. 74–77. ISBN 978-0198205142. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  68. In one five-year period, there were 57 Catholic villages in the area, whilst the Bulgarian uniate schools in the Vilayet of Thessaloniki reached 64. Gounaris, Basil C. National Claims, Conflicts and Developments in Macedonia, 1870–191, p. 186.
  69. The Bulgarian movement for union with Rome initially won some 60,000 adherents, but as a result of the establishment in 1870 of the Bulgarian Exarchate, at least three quarters of these returned to Orthodoxy by the end of the century. The Archbishop of all Uniat Bulgarians Nil Izvorov went back in 1884 to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. The clergy's numerous shifts were symptomatic of the Great Powers’ game that the clergy got involved after the 1878 Berlin Treaty, which left Macedonia and Thrace within the Ottoman Empire, after they had been given to Bulgaria with the March 1878 San Stefano Treaty.
  70. A survey from 1905 established the presence of 9,712 Exarchists, 40 Patriarchists, 592 Bulgarian Uniates and 16 Protestants. "La Macédoine et sa Population Chrétienne". D.M. Brancoff, Paris, 1905, р.98–99.
  71. Л. Чопова-Юрукова, Спомени за семейството на Гоце Делчев, сп. Септември, кн. 5, 1953, стр. 72; Ст. Стаматов, Спомени за Гоце Делчев и Борис Дрангов, София, 1935, стр. 15.
  72. Susan K. Kinnell, People in World History: A-M, ABC-CLIO, 1989, ISBN 0874365503, p. 157.
  73. Brooks, Julian Allan. December 2005. "'Shoot the Teacher!' Education and the Roots of the Macedonian Struggle". Thesis (M.A.) – Department of History – Simon Fraser University, pp. 133–134.
  74. Duncan M. Perry, Stefan Stambolov and the Emergence of Modern Bulgaria, 1870-1895, Duke University Press, 1993, ISBN 0822313138, p. 120.
  75. In a letter to Nikola Malesevski dated 5 January 1899, written on the occasion of certain disagreements among members of the organization Delchev wrote: Nikola, I have received all letters which were sent by or through you. May the disagreements and cleavages not frighten us. It is really pity, but what can we do, since we are Bulgarians and all suffer from one common disease. If this disease had not been present in our ancestors, from whom we inherited it, they would have never fallen under the sceptre of the Turkish Sultans. Our duty is not to give ourselves to that disease, of course, but how much can we affect others?" Chakalova, N. (ed.) The Unity of the Bulgarian language in the past and today, Publishing House of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1980, p. 53.; For more see: Гоце Делчев, Писма и други материали, издирил и подготвил за печат Дино Кьосев, отговорен редактор Воин Божинов; Изд. на Българската академия на науките, Институт за история, София 1967, стр. 183-186.
  76. "Илюстрация Илинден", София, 1936 г., кн. 1, стр. 4–5; (Magazine Ilustratsia Ilinden), Sofia, 1936, book I, pp. 4–5; the original is in Bulgarian.
  77. MacDermott, Mercia. For freedom and perfection: the Life of Yané Sandansky. Journeyman, London, 1988. p. 44.
  78. Elisabeth Özdalga, Late Ottoman Society: The Intellectual Legacy, Routledge, 2013, ISBN 1134294743, p. 263.
  79. Below is a statement that the cadet was expelled from the school on the basis of a memorandum of an officer, because of manifest poor behavior, but the school allows him to re-apply to a Commission for recovery of his status.
  80. Carl Cavanagh Hodge (30 November 2007). Encyclopedia of the Age of Imperialism, 1800–1914. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 442. ISBN 978-0313334047. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  81. Aarbakke, Vemund. Ethnic rivalry and the quest for Macedonia, 1870–1913, East European Monographs, 2003, ISBN 0880335270, p. 92.
  82. MacDermott, Mercia. . Freedom or Death: The Life of Delchev. Journeyman Press, London and West Nyack, 1978. 405 pp. ISBN 0-904526-32-1. Translated in Bulgarian: Макдермот, Мерсия. Свобода или смърт. Биография на Гоце Делчев, София 1979, с. 86–94.
  83. Banac, Ivo. "The Macedoine". In The National Question in Yugoslavia. Origins, History, Politics, Cornell University Press, 1984. pp. 307–328.
  84. Елдъров, Светлозар. "Върховният македоно-одрински комитет и Македоно-одринската организация в България (1895–1903)", Иврай, София, 2003, ISBN 9549121062, стр. 6.
  85. Пейо Яворов, "Събрани съчинения", Том втори, "Гоце Делчев", Издателство "Български писател", София, 1977, стр. 30. (in Bulgarian) In English: Peyo Yavorov, "Complete Works", Volume 2, biography " Delchev", Publishing house "Bulgarian writer", Sofia, 1977, p. 30.
  86. Балканските държави и Македонския въпрос, Антони Гиза, превод от полски – Димитър Димитров, Македонски Научен Институт София, 2001; in English: Giza, Anthoni: The Balkan states and the Macedonian question. Macedonian Scientific Institute, Sofia. 2001, translation from Polish: Dimitar Dimitrov.
  87. Hugh Poulton (2000). Who are the Macedonians?. C. Hurst & Co. pp. 54–55. ISBN 1850655340. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  88. Vladimir Ortakovski. Minorities in the Balkans Transnational Publishers, 2000, ISBN 1571051295, p. 43.
  89. Loyal Unto Death: Trust and Terror in Revolutionary Macedonia, Keith Brown, Indiana University Press, 2013, ISBN 0253008476, p. 62.
  90. Пейо Яворов, "Събрани съчинения", Том втори, "Гоце Делчев", Издателство "Български писател", София, 1977, стр. 32–33. (in Bulgarian) In English: Peyo Yavorov, "Complete Works", Volume 2, biography Delchev, Publishing house "Bulgarian writer", Sofia, 1977, pp. 32–33.
  91. Fires on the mountain: the Macedonian revolutionary movement and the kidnapping of Ellen Stone Volume, Laura Beth Sherman, East European Monographs, 1980, ISBN 0914710559, p. 15.
  92. Memoirs of Georgi Vasilev. Prinosi kam istoriyata na Makedono-odrinskoto revolyutsionno dvizhenie. Vol IV, p. 8, 9. From the memoirs of Petar Kiprilov, priest in the village of Pirok. Opus cit. p. 157.
  93. Иван Карайотов, Стоян Райчевски, Митко Иванов: История на Бургас. От древността до средата на ХХ век, Печат Тафпринт ООД, Пловдив, 2011, ISBN 978-954-92689-1-1, стр. 192–193.
  94. On this occasion, the revolutionist Kosta Tsipushev has claimed that at that time Delchev stated to him: "Be ready, tell all our comrades to prepare. We will form a great cheta under my leadership and we will go to fight with our army for our enslaved brothers to the north. For a while, we will turn our backs on Macedonia."
  95. Любомир Панайотов, Христо Христов, Гоце Делчев: спомени, документи, материали, Институт за история (Българска академия на науките) 1978, стр. 104-105.
  96. Пейо Яворов, "Събрани съчинения", Том втори, "Гоце Делчев", Издателство "Български писател", София, 1977, стр. 39. (in Bulgarian) In English:Peyo Yavorov, "Complete Works", Volume 2, biography Delchev, Publishing house "Bulgarian writer", Sofia, 1977, p. 39.
  97. Modern history abstracts, 1450–1914, Volume 48, Issue 1–, American Bibliographical Center, Eric H. Boehm, ABC-Clio, 1997, p. 657.
  98. Зафиров, Димитър (2007). История на Българите: Военна история на българите от древността до наши дни, том 5, Georgi Bakalov, TRUD Publishers, 2007, p. 397. ISBN 978-9546212351. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  99. Елдъров, Светозар. Тайните офицерски братства в освободителните борби на Македония и Одринско 1897–1912, Военно издателство, София, 2002, стр.11–30.
  100. Vassil Karloukovski. "Димо Хаджидимов. Живот и дело. Боян Кастелов (Изд. на Отечествения Фронт, София, 1985) стр. 60". Kroraina.com. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  101. For example in a speech, addressed to the VIII extraordinary congress of the Bulgarian promilitary Supreme Macedono-Adrianopolitan Organisation in Sofia on 7 April 1901: "Само ако тукашната организация одобрява духът на вътрешната организация и не се стреми да й дава импулс, въздействие, т. е. не й се бърка в нейните работи, само в такъв случай може да съществува връзка между тия две организации.", НБКМ – БИА, ф. 224, а. е. 8, л. 602, in English: "Only if the external organization approves the spirit of the internal organisation /IMRO, editor's note/ and doesn't aspire to give it impulse, influence, i.e., it doesn't meddle in its affairs, only in such case relation between these two organisations could exist."; the document is kept in the SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library, the Bulgarian Historical Archive department, fund 224, archive unit 8, page 602.
  102. Socialism and nationalism in the Ottoman Empire, 1876–1923, Mete Tunçay, Erik Jan Zürcher, British Academic Press, Amsterdam, 1994, ISBN 1850437874, p. 36.
  103. Detrez, Raymond. Historical Dictionary of Bulgaria, Scarecrow Press, 2006, ISBN 0810849011, p. 135.
  104. Troebst, Stefan (2007). Das makedonische Jahrhundert: von den Anfängen der nationalrevolutionären Bewegung zum Abkommen von Ohrid 1893–2001 ; ausgewählte Aufsätze, Stefan Troebst, Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2007, s. 54–57. ISBN 978-3486580501. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  105. Пейо Яворов, "Събрани съчинения", Том втори, "Гоце Делчев", Издателство "Български писател", София, 1977, стр. 62–66. (in Bulgarian) In English: Peyo Yavorov, "Complete Works", Volume 2, biography Delchev, Publishing house "Bulgarian writer", Sofia, 1977, pp. 62–66.
  106. "50-те най-големи атентата в българската история. Крум Благов, # 2. Солунските атентати". Krumblagov.com. Archived from the original on 4 May 2015. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  107. "Гоце Делчев, праведникът с кама в пояса, Цочо Билярски". Exartonline.com. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  108. It contains the following text in Ottoman Turkish: „We inform you, that on April, 22 (May, 5), in the village of Banitsa one of the leaders of the Bulgarian Committees, with name Delchev, was killed“.
  109. Khristo Angelov Khistov (1983). Lindensko-Preobrazhenskoto vŭstanie ot 1903 godina. Institut za istoria (Bŭlgarska akademia na naukite). p. 123. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  110. Пейо Яворов, "Събрани съчинения", Том втори, "Гоце Делчев", Издателство "Български писател", София, 1977, стр. 69. (in Bulgarian) In English: Peyo Yavorov, "Complete Works", Volume 2, biography Delchev, Publishing house "Bulgarian writer", Sofia, 1977, p. 69.
  111. R. J. Crampton (1997). A concise history of Bulgaria, Cambridge concise histories. Cambridge University Press. pp. 131–132. ISBN 0521561833. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  112. Държавен вестник, бр. 282, 4.ХІІ.1914, стр. 1.
  113. Elisabeth Kontogiorgi (2006). Population exchange in Greek Macedonia: the rural settlement of refugees 1922–1930. Oxford University Press. p. 204. ISBN 0199278962. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  114. Към Бяло море по стъпките на Гоце. Archived 3 May 2009 at the Wayback Machine
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  116. Ivo Dimitrov (May 6, 2003). "И брястът е изсъхнал край гроба на Гоце, Владимир Смеонов – наш пратеник в Серес". Standart News. Archived from the original on August 29, 2011. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  117. On the plate was this inscription: "In memory of fallen chetniks in the village of Banica on 4 May 1903 for the unification of Macedonia to the mother-country Bulgaria and to the eternal memory of the generations: Gotse Delchev from Kilkis, apostle and leader, Dimitar Gushtanov from Krushovo, Stefan Duhov from the village of Tarlis, Stoyan Zahariev from the village of Banica, Dimitar Palyankov from the village of Gorno Brodi. Their covenant was Freedom or Death." The plate was blown up by the Greeks in 1946. - сп. Илюстрация Илинден, 1943, бр.145-146, стр.13.
  118. Снимка на паметника на първия гроб на Гоце Делчев край село Баница, Серско, открит на 3 май 1943 г., 14 март 2012, Агенция "Фокус.
  119. R. H. Markham (2005). Tito's Imperial Communism. Kessinger Publishing. pp. 222–223. ISBN 1419162063. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  120. Charles A. Moser, A History of Bulgarian Literature 865–1944; Walter de Gruyter, 2019; ISBN 3110810603, p. 139.
  121. Maria Todorova, Bones of Contention: The Living Archive of Vasil Levski and the Making of Bulgaria's National Hero, Central European University Press, 2009, ISBN 9639776246, p. 77. For more see: MacDermott, Mercia. (1978) Freedom or Death: The Life of Gotse Delchev Journeyman Press, London and West Nyack. ISBN 0904526321.
  122. Duncan Perry, "The Republic of Macedonia: finding its way" in Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrot (eds.), Politics, power and the struggle for Democracy in South-Eastern Europe, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 228-229.
  123. Dawisha, Karen; Parrott, Bruce (13 June 1997). Politics, power, and the struggle for democracy in South-East Europe, Volume 2 of Authoritarianism and Democratization and authoritarianism in postcommunist societies, Karen Dawisha, Bruce Parrott, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 229–230. ISBN 0521597331. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
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  126. Lampe, John; Mazower, Mark (January 2004). Ideologies and national identities: the case of twentieth-century Southeastern Europe, John R. Lampe, Mark Mazower, Central European University Press, 2004, pp. 112–113. ISBN 9639241822. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  127. Мичев. Д. Македонският въпрос и българо-югославските отношения – 9 септември 1944–1949, Издателство: СУ Св. Кл. Охридски, 1992, стр. 91.
  128. P. H. Liotta, Dismembering the State: The Death of Yugoslavia and why it Matters. G - Reference, Lexington Books, 2001, ISBN 0739102125, p. 292.
  129. Loring M. Danforth (1997). The Macedonian conflict: ethnic nationalism in a transnational world. Princeton University Press. p. 68. ISBN 0691043566. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
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  131. P. H. Liotta (2001). Dismembering the state: the death of Yugoslavia and why it matters. Lexington Books. p. 292. ISBN 0739102125. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
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  136. Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900-1996, Chris Kostov , Peter Lang, 2010, ISBN 3034301960, p. 84.
  137. Historical dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia, Dimitar Bechev, Scarecrow Press, 2009, ISBN 0-8108-5565-8, pp. 15-16.
  138. Mirjana Maleska, ed. (3 February 2002). "With the eyes of the "others" – about Macedonian-Bulgarian relations and the Macedonian national identity". New Balkan Politics – Journal of Politics. Issue 6. Newbalkanpolitics.org.mk. Archived from the original on 24 September 2007. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  139. Chris Kostov; Peter Lang (2010). "Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900–1996". Nationalisms Across the Globe. p. 95. ISBN 978-3034301961. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  140. Gold, Gerald L. Minorities and mother country imagery, Memorial University of Newfoundland. Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1984, ISBN 0919666434, p. 74.
  141. Benson, Leslie (10 October 2001). Yugoslavia: a concise history, Leslie Benson, Palgrave Macmillan, 2001, p. 89. ISBN 0333792416. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  142. Hugh Poulton (2000). Who are the Macedonians?. C. Hurst & Co. p. 117. ISBN 1850655340. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  143. Will Myer, People of the Storm God: Travels in Macedonia, Lost and found series, Signal Books, 2005, ISBN 1902669924, p. 106.
  144. From recognition to repudiation: Bulgarian attitudes on the Macedonian question, articles, speeches, documents. Vanǵa Čašule, Kultura, 1972, p. 96.
  145. The historiography of Yugoslavia, 1965-1976, Savez društava istoričara Jugoslavije, Dragoslav Janković, The Association of Yugoslav Historical Societies, 1976, pp. 307–310.
  146. Yugoslav — Bulgarian Relations from 1955 to 1980 by Evangelos Kofos from J. Koliopoulos and J. Hassiotis (editors), Modern and Contemporary Macedonia: History, Economy, Society, Culture, vol. 2, (Athens-Thessaloniki, 1992), pp. 277–280.
  147. Кощунство от любов: Костите на Гоце Делчев 40 години стоят непогребани. Между редовете, май 03, 2017.
  148. In a failed effort to placate Tito, Josef Stalin pressured Bulgarian Communists in 1946 to relinquish Delchev's bones and allow him to be reburied in the courtyard of the Orthodox Church of Sveti Spas in Skopje, Macedonia (Kaplan 1993, 59). For more see: P. H. Liotta, Dismembering the State: The Death of Yugoslavia and why it Matters. G - Reference, Lexington Books, 2001, ISBN 0739102125, p. 292.
  149. As part of a policy to recognise Macedonian consciousness, Delčev's remains were finally moved to Skopje in 1946 and interred at Sv Spas. For more see: Thammy Evans, Philip Briggs, North Macedonia, Bradt Travel Guide, 2019, ISBN 1784770841, p. 143.
  150. "Last week the remains of the great Macedonian revolutionary Gotse Delchev were sent from Sofia to Macedonia, and from now on they will rest in Skopje, the capitol of the country for which he gave his life."
  151. "Bulgaria foreign minister takes "Friendship Treaty" to Macedonia, May 5, 2010, Sofia news agency". Novinite.com. 5 May 2010. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  152. "Сите ние сме Бугари". Македонски историци "на бунт" срещу общото честване на празниците ни. в-к "Дума", 07.06.2006.
  153. "България и светът. 04 Август 2006, По съседски: Събития с балкански адрес. Новина № 2". Bnr.bg. Archived from the original on October 20, 2006. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  154. PMs Borisov and Zaev place wreaths at Gotse Delchev's grave in Skopje, 2 August 2017, FOCUS News Agency.
  155. My Story, Your Story, History by Boyko Vassilev. 25 June 2019, Transitions Online.
  156. Stephen E. Palmer, Robert R. King, Yugoslav communism and the Macedonian question, Archon Books, 1971, ISBN 0208008217, pp. 6-7.
  157. Ulf Brunnbauer, "Serving the Nation: Historiography in the Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) after Socialism", Historien, Vol. 4 (2003–04), pp. 161-182.
  158. Член на историческата комисия от Северна Македония: Единственото сигурно е че ще се умре, но не и дали ще се намери решение за Гоце Делчев до октомври. Август 2019, Агенция "Фокус".
  159. Атанас Струмски, Македонистът Ванчо Георгиев нагло лъже за Гоце Делчев по македонска телевизия. Сборник Струмски — Македонистки фалшификации.
  160. Borissov warns North Macedonia against stealing Bulgarian history, by Georgi Gotev. EURACTIV.com. 20.06.2019.
  161. Martin Dimitrov and Sinisa Jakov Marusic Long-Dead Hero's Memory Tests Bulgarian-North Macedonian Reconciliation. BIRN 25 June 2019.
  162. Clive Leviev-Sawyer, Foreign Minister of North Macedonia expects understanding with Bulgaria on history will be reached. 26/06/2019, Ibna
  163. Пендаровски: Гоце Делчев се декларирал за Бугарин и се борел за самостојна македонска држава. Libertas.mk. 21.06.19.
  164. Marina Cattaruzza, Stefan Dyroff, Dieter Langewiesche as ed., Territorial Revisionism and the Allies of Germany in the Second World War: Goals, Expectations, Berghahn Books, 2012, ISBN 085745739X, p. 166.
  165. Bulgarian Politicians react to Pendarovski's Statement on Goce Delcev. SKOPJEDIEM.
  166. Public Reacts to Zaev's Statement on Macedonian History SKOPJEDIEM 23.07.2019.
  167. Caught in the historic dispute over Goce Delcev, President Pendarovski steers clear from his grave. 02.10.2019 Republika.mk.
  168. Bulgaria's nationalist Deputy PM throws spanner in works about N Macedonia's EU hopes. 29 September 2019, The Sofia Globe.
  169. Sinisa Jakov Marusic, Bulgaria Sets Tough Terms for North Macedonia's EU Progress Skopje. BIRN; 10 October 2019.
  170. Bulgaria blocks EU accession talks with North Macedonia. Nov 17, 2020, National post.
  171. "Foreign Minister Zaharieva: Bulgaria Cannot Approve EU Negotiating Framework with North Macedonia, Novinite.com - Sofia News Agency". www.novinite.com. Retrieved 11 December 2020.
  172. As a result of the Salonica Congress in 1896 a new Statute and Rules, providing for a very centralized form of organization were drawn up by Gyorche Petrov and Gotse Delchev. The Statute and Rules were probably largely Gyorche's work, based on guidelines agreed by the Congress. He attempted to draw members of the Supreme Macedonian Committee into the task of drafting the Statute by approaching Andrey Lyapchev and Dimitar Rizov. When, however, Lyapchev produced a first article which would have made the Organization a branch of the Supreme Committee, Petrov gave up in despair and wrote the Statute himself, with Delchev's assistance.
  173. During Delchev's lifetime, the Organization had three Statutes: the first was drawn up by Dame Gruev with the help of Petar Poparsov in 1894, the second by Gyorche Petrov, with the help from Gotse Delchev and the third by Delchev himself in 1902 (this was an amended version of the second). Two of these Statutes have come down to us: one entitled 'Statute of the Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Committees' (BMARC) and the other – 'Statute of the Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization' (SMARO). The first hectographed Statute, which was very brief, is not preserved.
  174. Пейо Яворов, "Събрани съчинения", Том втори, "Гоце Делчев", Издателство "Български писател", София, 1977, стр. 13. (in Bulgarian) In English: Peyo Yavorov, "Complete Works", Volume 2, biography Delchev, Publishing house "Bulgarian writer", Sofia, 1977, p. 13.
  175. Tusovka team (18 September 1903). "Georgi Khadzhiev, National liberation and libertarian federalism, Sofia 1992, pp. 99–148". Savanne.ch. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  176. Marks, Steven Gary; Marks, Steven G. (21 October 2002). How Russia shaped the modern world: from art to anti-semitism, ballet to Bolshevism, Steven Gary Marks, Princeton University Press, 2002, p. 29. ISBN 0691096848. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  177. John Shea (1997). Macedonia and Greece: the struggle to define a new Balkan nation. McFarland. p. 170. ISBN 0786402288. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  178. "Спомени на Гьорчо Петров", поредица Материяли за историята на македонското освободително движение, книга VIII, София, 1927, глава VII, (in English: "Memoirs of Gyorcho Petrov", series Materials about history of the Macedonian revolutionary movement, book VIII, Sofia, 1927, chapter VII).
  179. ...At first the revolutionary organization began to work among the Bulgarian population, even not among the whole of it, but only among this part, which participated in the Bulgarian Exarchate. IMRO treated suspiciously to the Bulgarians, which participated in other churches, as the Greek Patriarchate, the Eastern Catholic Church and the Protestant Church. As to the revolutionary activity among the other nationalities as Greeks, Turks, Albanians and Vlachs, such question did not exist for the founders of the organization. This other nationalities were for IMRO foreign people... Later, when the leaders of IMRO saw, that the idea for liberation of Macedonia can find followers among the Bulgarians non-Exarchists, as also among the other nationalities in Macedonia, and under the pressure from IMRO-members with left, socialist or anarchist convictions, they changed the statute of IMRO in sense, that member of IMRO can be any Macedonian and Adrianopolitan, regardless from his ethnicity or religious denomination... See: "Борбите на македонския народ за освобождение". Димитър Влахов, Библиотека Балканска Федерация, № 1, Виена, 1925, стр. 11.
  180. Ivo Banac. (1984). The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. p. 315. ISBN 978-0801494932. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  181. Edward J. Erickson (2003). Defeat in detail: the Ottoman Army in the Balkans, 1912–1913. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 39–43. ISBN 0275978885. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  182. Diana, Mishkova (January 2009). We, the People: Politics of National Peculiarity in Southeastern Europe, Diana Mishkova, Central European University Press, 2008, p. 114. ISBN 978-9639776289. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  183. Vassil Karloukovski. "Българите в най-източната част на Балканския полуостров – Източна Тракия. Димитър Г. Bойников, "Коралов и сие", 2009 г. (Bulgarian) In English: The Bulgarians in the easternmost area of the Balkans – Eastern Thrace, Dimitar G. Voynikov, Publishing house "Koralov and co.", Sofia, 2009". Kroraina.com. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  184. Anastasia N. Karakasidou (1997). Fields of wheat, hills of blood: passages to nationhood in Greek Macedonia, 1870–1990. University of Chicago Press. p. 282. ISBN 0226424944. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  185. R. J. Crampton (2007). Bulgaria, Oxford history of modern Europe. Oxford University Press. p. 164. ISBN 978-0198205142. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  186. Jonathan Bousfield; Dan Richardson; Richard Watkins (2002). Rough guide to Bulgaria. Rough Guides. p. 450. ISBN 1858288827. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  187. Гоце Делчев. Писма и други материали, Дино Кьосев, Биографичен очерк, стр. 33.
  188. Review of Chairs of History at Law and History Faculty of South-West University – Blagoevgrad, vol. 2/2005, Културното единство на българския народ в контекста на фирософията на Гоце Делчев, автор Румяна Модева, стр. 2.
  189. "Freedom or Death. The Life of Gotsé Delchev by Mercia MacDermott, The Journeyman Press, London & West Nyack, 1978, p. 322". Kroraina.com. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  190. Идеята за автономия като тактика в програмите на национално-освободителното движение в Македония и Одринско (1893–1941), Димитър Гоцев, 1983, Изд. на Българска Академия на Науките, София, 1983, c. 34.; in English: The idea for autonomy as a tactics in the programs of the National Liberation movements in Macedonia and Adrianople regions 1893–1941", Sofia, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Dimitar v, 1983, p 34. Among others, there are used the memoirs of the IMRO revolutionary Kosta Tsipushev, where he cited Delchev, that the autonomy then was only tactics, aiming future unification with Bulgaria. (55. ЦПА, ф. 226); срв. К. Ципушев. 19 години в сръбските затвори, СУ Св. Климент Охридски, 2004, ISBN 954-91083-5-X стр. 31–32. in English: Kosta Tsipushev, 19 years in Serbian prisons, Sofia University publishing house, 2004, ISBN 954-91083-5-X, p. 31-32.
  191. "Таjните на Македонија.Се издава за прв пат, Скопје 1999". Archived from the original on 27 October 2009. Retrieved 27 October 2009.CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link). in Macedonian – Ете како ја објаснува целта на борбата Гоце Делчев во 1901 година: "...Треба да се бориме за автономноста на Македонија и Одринско, за да ги зачуваме во нивната целост, како еден етап за идното им присоединување кон општата Болгарска Татковина". In English – How Delchev explained the aim of the struggle against the Ottomans in 1901: "...We have to fight for autonomy of Macedonia and Adrianople regions as a stage for their future unification with our common fatherland, Bulgaria."
  192. According to Hristo Tatarchev in 1893 by the establishment of the organization: ...We talked a long time about the goal of this organization and at last we fixed it on autonomy of Macedonia with the priority of the Bulgarian element. We couldn't accept the position for "direct joining to Bulgaria" because we saw that it would meet big difficulties by reason of confrontation of the Great powers and the aspirations of the neighbouring small countries and Turkey. It passed through our thoughts that one autonomous Macedonia could easier unite with Bulgaria subsequently and if the worst comes to the worst, that it could play a role as a unificating link of a federation of Balkan people... – Вътрешната македоно-одринска революционна организация като митологична и реална същност: Торино 1934–1936, Христо Татарчев, Издател Македония прес, 1995.стр. 99.
  193. Dimitris Livanios (2008). The Macedonian Question: Britain and the Southern Balkans 1939–1949. Oxford University Press US. p. 15. ISBN 978-0199237685. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  194. Loring M. Danforth, ed. (1997). The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World. Princeton University Press. p. 64. ISBN 0691043566. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  195. The national question in Yugoslavia: origins, history, politics, Cornell Paperbacks, Ivo Banac, Cornell University Press, 1988, ISBN 0801494931, p. 314.
  196. "Internationalism as an alternative political strategy in the modern history of Balkans by Vangelis Koutalis, Greek Social Forum, Thessaloniki, June 2003". Okde.org. 25 October 2002. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  197. Perry, Duncan M. (1988). The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian Revolutionary Movements, 1893–1903, Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, p.23.
  198. Shea, John (January 1997). Macedonia and Greece: the struggle to define a new Balkan nation, John Shea, McFarland, 1997, p.204. ISBN 0786402288. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  199. Delchev, openly said: "We are Bulgarians"(Mac Dermott, 1978:192, 273, quoted in Danforth, 1995:64) and addressed "the Slavs of Macedonia as ‘Bulgarians’ in an offhanded manner without seeming to indicate that such a designation was a point of contention" (Perry, 1988:23, quoted in Danforth, 1995:64). See: Center for Documentation and Information on Minorities in Europe – Southeast Europe (CEDIME-SE), Slavic-Macedonians of Bulgaria, p. 5.
  200. "Lyubcho Georgievski seeks the spirit of Gotse Delchev" (in Bulgarian). Standart News. 21 June 2018. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 21 June 2019.
  201. Академик Иван Катарџиев, "Верувам во националниот имунитет на македонецот", интервју, "Форум": "форум – Дали навистина Делчев се изјаснувал како Бугарин и зошто? Катарџиев – Ваквите прашања стојат. Сите наши луѓе се именувале како "Бугари"..."; also (in Macedonian; in English: "Academician Ivan Katardzhiev. I believe in Macedonian national immunity", interview, "Forum" magazine: "Forum – Whether Delchev really defined himself as Bulgarian and why? Katardzhiev – Such questions exist. All our people named themselves as "Bulgarians"...")
  202. "Уште робуваме на старите поделби", Разговор со д-р Зоран Тодоровски, www.tribune.eu.com, 27. 06. 2005, also here "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2 April 2012. Retrieved 2 September 2009.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) (in Macedonian); in English: "We are still in servitude to the old divisions", interview with Dr. Zoran Todorovski, published on www.tribune.eu.com, 27 June 2005.
  203. Проштавање и национално помирување (3), д-р Антонио Милошоски, Утрински Весник, бр. 1760, 16 окт. 2006, In English: "Forgiving and national reconciliation (3)", Dr. Antonio Miloshoski, Utrinski Vesnik, issue 1760, 16 October 2006. Archived 19 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  204. Klaus Roth; Ulf Brunnbauer (2009). Region, Regional Identity and Regionalism in Southeastern Europe, Ethnologia Balkanica. Münster: LIT Verlag. pp. 135–136. ISBN 978-3825813871. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  205. From a circular-letter № 1, written by Peyo Yavorov under the supervision of Delchev and addressed to all revolutionary committees in Macedonia and the Adrianople area, dated from June 1902.
  206. In a conversation in 1900, with Lozengrad comrades, he was asked whether, in the event of a rising, the Organization should count on help from the Bulgarian Principality, and whether it would not be wiser at the outset to proclaim the union of Macedonia and Thrace with the Principality. Gotse replied: "We have to work courageously, organizing and arming ourselves well enough to take the burden of the struggle upon our own shoulders, without counting on outside help. External intervention is not desirable from the point of view of our cause. Our aim, our ideal is autonomy for Macedonia and the Adrianople region, and we must also bring into the struggle the other peoples who live in these two provinces as well... We, the Bulgarians of Macedonia and Adrianople, must not lose sight of the fact that there are other nationalities and states who are vitally interested in the solution of this questions". Приноси към историята на въстаническото движение в Одринско (1895–1903), т. IV, Бургас – 1941.
  207. Victor Roudometof (2002). Collective memory, national identity, and ethnic conflict: Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian question. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 79. ISBN 0275976483. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  208. Македония в българската фалеристика, Автор Тодор Петров, Издател: Военно издателство "Св. Георги Победоносец", 2004 г., ISBN 9545092831, стр. 9–10.
  209. Mariana Nikolaeva Todorova (2004). Balkan identities: nation and memory. C. Hurst & Co. p. 238. ISBN 1850657157. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  210. Maria N. Todorova (2008). Bones of Contention: The Living Archive of Vasil Levski and the Making of Bulgaria's National Hero. Central European University Press. pp. 76–77. ISBN 978-9639776241. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
  211. Марија Бракочевић, Гоце Делчев – херој или антисрпски идеолог. Политика Online, 14.05.2016.
  212. Виктория Миндова, Паметникът на Гоце Делчев в Серес пропадна в процедурен вакум. GR Reporter, 21 Май 2013.
  213. Мария Цветкова: Това, че не бяхме допуснати до паметната плоча на Гоце Делчев, беше демонстрация на антибългарско отношение. Агенция "Фокус", 04 май 2014.
  214. Георги Брандийски Гръцките власти задържали наш журналист край лобното място на Гоце Делчев. Dir.bg, 7 май 2018.

References
  • Пандев, К. "Устави и правилници на ВМОРО преди Илинденско-Преображенското въстание", Исторически преглед, 1969, кн. I, стр. 68–80. (in Bulgarian)
  • Пандев, К. "Устави и правилници на ВМОРО преди Илинденско-Преображенското въстание", Извeстия на Института за история, т. 21, 1970, стр. 250–257. (in Bulgarian)
  • Битоски, Крсте, сп. "Македонско Време", Скопје – март 1997, quoting: Quoting: Public Record Office – Foreign Office 78/4951 Turkey (Bulgaria), From Elliot, 1898, Устав на ТМОРО. S. 1. published in Документи за борбата на македонскиот народ за самостојност и за национална држава, Скопје, Универзитет "Кирил и Методиј": Факултет за филозофско-историски науки, 1981, pp 331 – 333. (in Macedonian)
  • Hugh Pouton Who Are the Macedonians?, C. Hurst & Co, 2000. p. 53. ISBN 1-85065-534-0
  • Fikret Adanir, Die Makedonische Frage: ihre entestehung und etwicklung bis 1908., Wiessbaden 1979, p. 112.
  • Duncan Perry The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian Liberation Movements, 1893–1903 , Durham, Duke University Press, 1988. pp. 40–41, 210 n. 10.
  • Friedman, V. (1997) "One Grammar, Three Lexicons: Ideological Overtones and Underpinnings of the Balkan Sprachbund" in CLS 33 Papers from the 33rd Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. (Chicago : Chicago Linguistic Society)
  • Димитър П. Евтимов, Делото на Гоце Делчев, Варна, изд. на варненското Македонско културно-просветно дружество "Гоце Делчев", 1937. (in Bulgarian)
  • Пейо Яворов, "Събрани съчинения", Том втори, "Гоце Делчев", Издателство "Български писател", София, 1977. In English: Peyo Yavorov, "Complete Works", Volume 2, biography "Delchev", Publishing house "Bulgarian writer", Sofia, 1977.(in Bulgarian)
  • MacDermott, Mercia. (1978) Freedom or Death: The Life of Gotse Delchev Journeyman Press, London and West Nyack. ISBN 0-904526-32-1.
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