MACEDONIAN REVOLUTIONARY ORGANIZATION

[Makedonska Revoliutsionna Organizatsiia]

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READ EXCERPTS FROM DAME GRUEV'S MEMOIRS
READ AN INDEPTH 1903 ARTICLE ALL ABOUT IMRO

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On 23nd October 1893 six people - Dame Gruev, Ivan Hadzhinikolov, Andon Dimitrov, Hristo Tatarchev, Petur Poparsov and Hristo Batandzhiev - met in Hadzhinikolov's room on Chelebi-Bakal street, Salonika (that is within Ottoman Macedonia) to plan a revolutionary organization, essentially based on Levsky's past model, which might eventually free the Macedonian people. Dr Tatarchev was elected as the first President, and Dame Gruev secretary/treasurer of the group which initially referred to itself as the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (Makedonska revoliutsionna organizatsiia).

According to Gruev their aims were twofold

1. To combat the Serbian propaganda, which they foresaw as attempting to prevent the unity of all the Bulgarian people

2. To secure implementation of Article 23 of the Treaty of Berlin 1878, which they envisaged would eventually lead to Macedonian autonomy within the Ottoman empire (their interpretation of Article 23 however appears incorrect)

Tartarchev summarised their thoughts as follows

"WE COULD NOT ACCEPT THE POSITION OF DIRECT UNIFICATION OF MACEDONIA WITH BULGARIA, BECAUSE WE COULD SEE THAT THIS WOULD INVOLVE US IN GREAT DIFFICULTIES OWING TO THE OPPOSITION OF THE GREAT POWERS AND THE ASPIRATIONS OF THE SMALL NEIGHBOURING STATES AND TURKEY. IT OCCURRED TO US THAT AN AUTONOMOUS MACEDONIA COULD EVENTUALLY BE UNITED WITH BULGARIA MORE EASILY, AND, IF WORSE CAME TO THE WORST, AND THIS COULD NOT BE DONE, IT COULD SERVE AS A UNIFYING LINK WITHIN A FEDERATION OF BALKAN PEOPLES."

The organization was first officially known (1897) as the "Bulgarian-Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization" (Bulgarsko-Makedonsko-Odrinsko revoliutsionna organizatsiia). The title was changed in 1902 to "Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization" (Taina Makedonska-Odrinska revoliutsionna organizatsiia). After 1905 sources also referred to it as the now familiar IMRO (Vutrehsnata Makedonska revoliutsionna organizatsiia). The aim of IMRO, explicitly defined within its 1897 statutes, was to "gain full political autonomy for Macedonia and the Adrianople Vilayet". Membership however was limited by the statutes to

"ANY BULGARIAN, IRRESPECTIVE OF SEX, WHO HAS NOT COMPROMISED HIMSELF IN THE EYES OF THE COMMUNITY ... AND WHO PROMISES TO BE OF SERVICE IN SOME WAY TO THE REVOLUTIONARY CAUSE OF LIBERATION"

In 1902 Gotse Delchev revised the statutes, which he and Giorche Petrov had written in 1897. This was an attempt to make IMRO a more ethnically representative organization. Therefore the title was changed to SMARO and the first article now read

"THE AIM OF SMARO IS TO UNITE IN ONE WHOLE, ALL DISCONTENTED ELEMENTS IN MACEDONIA AND THE ADRIANOPLE AREA, IRRESPECTIVE OF NATIONALITY, TO WIN FULL POLITICAL AUTONOMY FOR THESE TWO PROVINCES THROUGH REVOLUTION"

However it is uncertain whether these new amendments were ever ratified.