Dame Gruev

Damyan Yovanov Gruev (,The first names can also be transliterated as ''Damjan Jovanov'', after Bulgarian Дамян Йованов Груев and Macedonian Дамјан Јованов Груев. The last name is also sometimes rendered as ''Grueff''. originally spelled in pre-1945 Bulgarian orthography as ''Дамянъ Йовановъ Груевъ''; January 19, 1871 – December 23, 1906) was а Bulgarian teacher, revolutionary and insurgent leader in the Ottoman regions of Macedonia and Thrace. He was one of the six founders of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. Despite his Bulgarian self-identification, according to the post-World War II Macedonian historiography, he was an ethnic Macedonian.

Biography

Early years

Dame Gruev was born in 1871 in the village of Smilevo, Monastir Vilayet, Ottoman Empire (present-day North Macedonia). He received his elementary education in Smilevo and continued his education in the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki. He was part of a group excluded from the school following a student revolt. In early 1888, the group, consisting of 19 people, including other future IMRO-revolutionaries was attracted by Serbian propaganda. As result they went to study in a Serbian Gymnazium in Belgrade at the expense of the Saint Sava society. Gruev later continued his education in the Grandes écoles in Belgrade. Following yet another revolt, Gruev and his associates were excluded from the Great School and emigrated ''en bloc'' to Bulgaria. Gruev was enrolled in Sofia University and, later, in the Young Macedonian Literary Society. He found also the circle "Druzhba", whose aim was to implement "Article 23" of the Treaty of Berlin (1878) on authonomy of Macedonia. In 1891 Gruev was expelled from the university as he was suspected in the assassination of the Minister Hristo Belchev, but subsequently this allegation turned out to be groundless.

Next, Gruev left the university and returned to Ottoman Macedonia region to apply himself to a new revolutionary organization. In order to carry out his plans more successfully, and possibly to avert the suspicion of the Turkish authorities, he decided to become a Bulgarian school teacher. The first two years after his return to Macedonia region he spent teaching, first in his native village of Smilevo, and later in the town of Prilep. Later, Gruev established himself in Thessaloniki and here laid the foundation of BMARC (the Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees). With the cooperation of Hristo Tatarchev and Petar Pop Arsov among others, he came up with the Constitution and By-laws of IMARC. It was to be a secret organization under the guidance of a Central Committee, with local revolutionary committees throughout Macedonia and the region of Adrianople (Edirne). These regions were to be divided into revolutionary districts or ''rayons'' like in the April Uprising. In accordance with the Constitution, the first Central Revolutionary Committee was formed in the summer of 1894, under the chairmanship of Hristo Tatarchev.

1894 to 1900

In the summer of 1894 in Negotino, he organized the first local revolutionary committee, and soon after with the cooperation of Pere Toshev, the first district committee in the city of Štip. Gruev visited the cities of Resen, Ohrid, and Struga as well, and found the local population to be accepting his organization's revolutionary ideas very well. He remained a teacher in Štip during the academic year 1894–1895. In the fall of 1895 Gotse Delchev arrived in Štip with the idea of laying the foundations of a revolutionary movement seeking autonomy for Macedonia and Adrianople Thrace. Gruev and Delchev met for the first time and shared their ideas there. Gruev introduced Delchev to the plan already outlined by the Central Committee of Thessaloniki. After this, both Gruev and Gotse Delchev worked together in Štip and its environs.

The expansion of the IMRO at the time was phenomenal, particularly after Gruev settled in Thessaloniki during the years 1895–1897, in the quality of a Bulgarian school inspector. Gruev had become the soul and body of the Central revolutionary committee. Under his direction, secret revolutionary papers were issued, ciphers were introduced, pseudonyms or a ''nom de plume'' were used, and channels for secret communication between various other local and Macedonian committees were maintained. A representative of the Central Revolutionary Committee was sent to Sofia to take charge of purchasing and dispatching of the necessary war provisions for IMARC. Gruev's tirelessly travelled throughout Macedonia and the Vilayet of Adrianople and systematically established and organized committees in villages and cities. In 1897, Gruev was also one of the founders of the Society against Serbs. Unfortunately, for purely political reasons, and in order to avoid suspicion from the Ottoman authorities, IMARC decided to dismiss Gruev in 1898. Soon after his dismissal Gruev moved to Bitola and there with the cooperation of Petar Poparsov, Vasil Paskov and others, he began to issue a revolutionary paper.

He organized a system in which money was collected from Sunday schools through a special "revolutionary tax

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