Spiro Kitinchev

Spiro Kitinchev (born 1895 in Skopje, Ottoman Empire, died 1946 in Idrizovo, FPR Yugoslavia) was a Macedonian Bulgarian writer, activist, and politician during the Second World War in Yugoslav Macedonia.[1][2][3]

Spiro Kitinchev
Born1895 (1895)
Skopje, Ottoman Empire
Died1946 (aged 50–51)
Idrizovo, FPR Yugoslavia
Alma materUniversity of Lausanne
Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki
Parent(s)
  • Gyore Kitinchev (father)

Biography

During his teenage years Spiro attended the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki, then part of the Ottoman Empire. In 1912 Skopje was ceded to Serbia where the Macedonian Slavs were faced with the policy of forced serbianisation. When during World War I Bulgaria occupied Macedonia (1915 - 1918) his father, Georgi Kitinchev became a mayor of Skopje.[4] At the same time he studied in Lausanne, Switzerland.[5] Spiro was involved there in the organization of Macedonian students called MYSRO. In 1919, during the meetings of the Paris Peace Conference, the MYSRO issued appeale in favor of an independent multiethnic Macedonian state, based on the principle of the Swiss Confederation.

After 1919, Kitinchev returned to Skopje, then part of Kingdom of Yugoslavia. He was among the founders of the "Luc" magazine and a propagandist of the idea of publishing materials of local dialect.[6] At the time he became a member of the right-wing IMRO regional committee. During 1930s Kitinchev was arrested several times by the Serbian authorities.[7] In 1936, together with Dimitar Chkatrov and Dimitar Gyuzelov, he joined the democratic organization MANAPO. In 1930s a more homogeneous generation was growing up in Vardar Macedonia, which resisted serbianisation, but which also made it clear that the Bulgarian national idea was no more the only option for them.

During the Invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, Kitinchev was elected vice-president of the Bulgarian Action Committees After the town subsequently was annexed again by Bulgaria (1941-1944) he became a mayor of Skopje. Despite the slight change of the younger generation in the 1930s, anti-Serbian and pro-Bulgarian sentiments still prevailed. There is a no doubt that the Bulgarians were greeted as liberators. The Macedonian national identity then hardly existed.[8][9][10][11][12]

In the early September 1944 Bulgaria ordered its troops to prepare for withdrawal from former Yugoslavia and on 8 September, the Bulgarians changed sides and declared war on Germany. On the same day pro-German puppet state was declared by right-wing Macedonian nationalists and among its leaders were Kitinchev, Vasil Hadzhikimov, Stefan Stefanov, Dimitar Gyuzelov and Dimitar Tchkatrov. They had foreseen the future of this independent Macedonia under the protectorate of the Third Reich. The state had to have a Bulgarian character and its official language to be Bulgarian.[13] Without the means to make the state a reality, this pretense dissolved as soon as the Yugoslav Partisans asserted their control following the withdrawal of German troops from the area during November. This event marked the defeat of the Bulgarian nationalism and the victory of the Macedonism in the area.[14]

Yugoslav Communists recognized then the existence of distinct Macedonian nationality to quiet fears of the Macedonian Slavs that they would continue to follow the policy of forced serbianization. For them to recognize the inhabitants of Macedonia as Bulgarians would be to admit that they should be part of Bulgaria.[15] The new authorities accused Kitinchev, who was already arrested, of being Bulgarian nationalist and Bulgarian fascist occupiers collaborator.[16] Kitinchev was sentenced to death, but later this sentence was changed to 20-year prison. He died in Idrizovo prison after a year of tuberculosis and torture.[17]

See also

Literature


References
  1. Ivan Katardžiev, Macedonia and its neighbours: past, present, future, Menora, 2001, p. 178.
  2. Hristo Adonov-Poljanski, Documents on the Struggle of the Macedonian People for Independence and a Nation-state: From the end of World War One to the creation of a nation-state, Volume 2, Univerzitet "Kiril i Metodij", Skopje. Kultura, 1985, p. 476.
  3. Николов, Борис Й. Вътрешна македоно-одринска революционна организация. Войводи и ръководители (1893-1934). Биографично-библиографски справочник, София, 2001, стр. 78.
  4. Минчев, Димитър. Българските акционни комитети в Македония - 1941 г. София, Македонски научен институт, 1995. с. 26.
  5. Николов, Борис. ВМОРО – псевдоними и шифри 1893-1934, Звезди, 1999, стр.88.
  6. Църнушанов, Коста. Македонизмът и съпротивата на Македония срещу него. Университетско издателство „Св. Климент Охридски“, София, 1992, стр. 152.
  7. Михайлов, Иван. Спомени, том III, Луврен, 1967, стр. 363-376, в: Билярски, Цочо. Подвигът на Мара Бунева (съкратено издание), Анико, София, 2010, стр.28.
  8. Zielonka, Jan; Pravda, Alex (2001). Democratic consolidation in Eastern Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 422. ISBN 978-0-19-924409-6. Unlike the Slovene and Croatian identities, which existed independently for a long period before the emergence of SFRY, Macedonian identity and language were themselves a product federal Yugoslavia, and took shape only after 1944. Again unlike Slovenia and Croatia, the very existence of a separate Macedonian identity was questioned—albeit to a different degree—by both the governments and the public of all the neighboring nations (Greece being the most intransigent)
  9. Kaufman, Stuart J. (2001). Modern hatreds: the symbolic politics of ethnic war. New York: Cornell University Press. p. 193. ISBN 0-8014-8736-6. The key fact about Macedonian nationalism is that it is new: in the early twentieth century, Macedonian villagers defined their identity religiously—they were either "Bulgarian," "Serbian," or "Greek" depending on the affiliation of the village priest. While Bulgarian was most common affiliation then, mistreatment by occupying Bulgarian troops during WWII cured most Macedonians from their pro-Bulgarian sympathies, leaving them embracing the new Macedonian identity promoted by the Tito regime after the war.
  10. "At the end of the WWI there were very few historians or ethnographers, who claimed that a separate Macedonian nation existed.... Of those Slavs who had developed some sense of national identity, the majority probably considered themselves to be Bulgarians, although they were aware of differences between themselves and the inhabitants of Bulgaria.... 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.The Macedonian conflict: ethnic nationalism in a transnational world, Loring M. Danforth, Princeton University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-691-04356-6, pp. 65-66.
  11. "Most of the Slavophone inhabitants in all parts of divided Macedonia, perhaps a million and a half in all – had a Bulgarian national consciousness at the beginning of the Occupation; and most Bulgarians, whether they supported the Communists, VMRO, or the collaborating government, assumed that all Macedonia would fall to Bulgaria after the WWII. Tito was determined that this should not happen. The first Congress of AVNOJ in November 1942 had paranteed equal rights to all the 'peoples of Yugoslavia', and specified the Macedonians among them...The Communist Party of Macedonia, which had passed through a troubled time, first under a pro-Bulgarian leadership and then under pro-Yugoslav Macedonians, was taken in hand early in 1943 by Tempo, who formed a new Central Committee and informed it that it was now an integral part of the Yugoslav CP. "The struggle for Greece, 1941-1949, Christopher Montague Woodhouse, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2002, ISBN 1-85065-492-1, p. 67.
  12. "Despite the slight change of the younger generation in the 1930s, reflected in the slogan "Macedonia for the Macedonians", anti-Serbian and pro-Bulgarian sentiment still prevailed. Even "Macedonia for the Macedonians" signalled in many ways an acceptance of the state of Yugoslavia and an attempt to gain autonomy within it. The collapse of Yugoslavia changed all this. There is a little doubt that the initial reaction among large sections of the population of Vardar Macedonia who had suffered so much under the Serbian repression was to greet the Bulgarians as liberators." Who are the Macedonians? Hugh Poulton, Hurst & Co. Publishers, 1995, ISBN 978-1-85065-238-0, p. 101.
  13. Todor Chepreganov et al., History of the Macedonian People, Institute of National History, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje,(2008) p. 254.
  14. Macedonia and the Macedonians: A History, Andrew Rossos, Hoover Press, 2008, ISBN 9780817948832, p. 189.
  15. Stephen E. Palmer, Robert R. King, Yugoslav communism and the Macedonian question, Archon Books, 1971, ISBN 0208008217, Chapter 9: The encouragement of Macedonian culture.In 1945
  16. Michael Palairet, Macedonia: A Voyage through History, Volume 2, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016, ISBN 1443888494, p. 293.
  17. Гоцев, Димитър. Новата национално-освободителна борба във Вардарска Македония 1944-1991 г., Македонски научен институт, София, 1998, глава Първите политически процеси.
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