Ilinden in Bulgarian

While the Supreme Committee was in favour of sending armed detachments aimed at creating constant tensions in the two regions and thus keeping the attention of European diplomacy on the alert with regard to the unsettled Bulgarian national question, IMARO was systematically and purposefully preparing the people for a general up-rising. A dense network of secret revolutionary committees was built up in both regions, arms were supplied and military training was organized. In spite of the courage and selflessness of the detachments sent by the Supreme Committee, in most of the cases the objective results from their actions were negative – they caused cruel reprisals on the part of the Turkish authorities against the civilian Bulgarian population and brought about betrayals of the conspiracy inside the Internal Revolutionary Organization.

Characteristic in this respect was the uprising in Gorna Djumaya in 1902, whose suppression was accompanied by horrible atrocities, which brought about the routing of many of the secret committees and strengthened the vigilance and alertness of the Turkish authorities. The probability of disclosures in the remaining parts of Macedonia and Thrace tilted the balance of forces within the organization in favour of its more impatient members who insisted on speeding up the proclamation of the general uprising which had not been well prepared.

At the height of the preparations, on May 4, 1903, Gotse Delchev was killed in an unequal battle with a Turkish posse which had surrounded him in the village of Banitsa, Seres district (now in Greece). On the previously set date, August 2, 1903 (St Elijah’s Day, Ilinden in Bulgarian) the Bulgarians of the Bitola Revolutionary district raised an uprising which spread quickly over the neighbouring districts. A republic was proclaimed in the liberated town of Kroushevo, which had become the in-surgents’ capital. The uprising became a general one as the Wallachian population also joined it.

Uprising in Adrianople Thrace

In order to surprise and divide the enemy forces, the uprising in Adrianople Thrace was declared on August 19 (Transfiguration Day, ‘Preobrazhenie’ in Bulgarian) when the fighting in Macedonia had reached its culmination point. There too a republic was proclaimed – the Strandja Republic. The up-rising in Macedonia was headed by Damyan Grouev, Nikola Karev, Boris Sarafov, A. Lozanchev and others, while the one in the Adrianople region – by Mihail Gerdjikov, Stamat Ikonomov and Lazar Madjarov.