Nikola Kirov

Nikola Kirov-Mayski (1880, Kruševo, Manastir Vilayet, Ottoman Empire-1962, Sofia, Bulgaria) was a Bulgarian teacher, revolutionary and public figure, a member of IMRO. Although he identified himself as Bulgarian,[1] per negationist Macedonian historiography,[2][3] he was ethnic Macedonian.[4][5]

Nikola Kirov
Никола Киров
Born1880
Kırşova, Ottoman Empire (now North Macedonia)
Died1962
Sofia, Bulgaria
OccupationTeacher, publicist, revolutionary

Biography

Nikola Kirov was born on 28 June 1880 in Kruševo, in the Manastir Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire (present-day North Macedonia).[6] He completed basic education in his hometown, but then studied at the Bulgarian Men's High School in Bitola, from where he was expelled in 1898. He moved later to Thessaloniki and in 1902 graduated the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki. In the high school he joined the IMRO.[7] During the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie uprising, Nikola Kirov was in Kruševo and participated in the declaration and defense of the Kruševo Republic, and after the uprising was the head of the Kruševo Revolutionary Committee.[8] He became Bulgarian Exarchate teacher in Embore and later in Debar and in 1911-1912 he was the director of the Bulgarian school in Resen.[9]

After the Second Balkan War he emigrated with his whole family to Bulgaria and graduated from Sofia University.[10] He participated in the activities of the Macedonian Federative Organization and of the Ilinden (Organization). In 1923 he published the novel "Ilinden", in which he attributed to Nikola Karev the creation of the Kruševo Manifesto.[11] It was one of the first literary works that were published in his native Prilep-Bitola dialect,[12] even before there was a standardized Macedonian language.[13] He is the author of the works "Looking to Macedonia", "Krushevo and his struggles for freedom" (1935), "The Krushevo Epic", "Light to Darkness" and others. He also appeared as a playwright and poet. Kirov regularly published materials in the magazine "Ilinden". He died in 1962 in Sofia.[14]

References
  1. Николов, Борис Й. Вътрешна македоно-одринска революционна организация. Войводи и ръководители (1893-1934). Биографично-библиографски справочник, София, 2001, стр. 76 - 77.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. Although Yugoslav-era historians in the Republic of Macedonia objected to Kirov-Majski's classification of Macedonia's Slavic population as Bulgarian, they quickly embraced all else in his narrative of events and attitudes in 1903 as definitive. For more see:Keith Brown, The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation, Princeton University Press, 2003, ISBN 0691099952, p. 81.
  5. The account of the Macedono-Bulgarian author Nikola Kirov-Mayski is very popular in the FYROM and it is one of the primary sources on the rebellion, even though, similar to the two Greek accounts, Kirov-Mayski mentions Bulgarians, Vlachs and Greeks, but no ethnic Macedonians who participated in the Ilinden Rebellion in Krushevo. For more see: Chris Kostov, Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900-1996, Volume 7 of Nationalisms across the globe, Peter Lang, 2010, ISBN 3034301960, p. 71.
  6. Dimitar Bechev, Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia, Historical Dictionaries of Europe, Scarecrow Press, 2009, ISBN 0810862956, p. 116.
  7. Кандиларовъ, Георги Ст. Българскитѣ гимназии и основни училища въ Солунъ (по случай на 50-годишнината на солунскитѣ български гимназии). София, Македонски Наученъ Институтъ, печатница П. Глушковъ, 1930. с. 97.
  8. Киров, Никола. Спомени и преживелици, Македония, год. VI, бр. 1760, 2 септември 1932, с. 4, бр. 1761, 3 септември 1932, с. 4, бр. 1762, 5 септември 1932, с. 4.
  9. Генов, Георги. Беломорска Македония 1908 - 1916, Торонто, 2006, стр.37.
  10. Поповски, Търпо. Македонски дневник. Спомени на отец Търпо Поповски, Фама, София, 2006, стр. 151.
  11. Myths and boundaries in south-eastern Europe, Author Pål Kolstø, Publisher Hurst & Co., 2005, p. 284.
  12. The Bulgarian Ministry of Education officially codified standard Bulgarian language in 1899, while Macedonian was finally codified in 1950 in Communist Yugoslavia, that finalized the progressive split in the common Macedonian–Bulgarian pluricentric area. Macedonian dialects are still considered to be Bulgarian in Bulgaria. For more see: Victor Roudometof. Collective memory, national identity, and ethnic conflict: Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian question (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002), p. 41.
  13. Torsten Szobries: Sprachliche Aspekte des nation-building in Mazedonien. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1999, S. 56.
  14. Николов, Борис. ВМОРО - псевдоними и шифри 1893-1934, Звезди, 1999, стр. 72-73.
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