Kuzman Josifovski Pitu (

Macedonian Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia. Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to: People Modern * Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North M ...

: Кузман Јосифовски – Питу; 23 June 1915 – 25 February 1944) was a

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

partisan Partisan may refer to: Military * Partisan (weapon), a pole weapon * Partisan (military), paramilitary forces engaged behind the front line Films * ''Partisan'' (film), a 2015 Australian film * ''Hell River'', a 1974 Yugoslavian film also know ...

and one of the organizers of the Peoples's Liberation Struggle in Macedonia who was declared a People's Hero of Yugoslavia.

Biography

He was born in 1915 in

Prilep Prilep ( mk, Прилеп ) is the fourth-largest city in North Macedonia. It has a population of 66,246 and is known as "the city under Marko's Towers" because of its proximity to the towers of Prince Marko. Name The name of Prilep appear ...

and studied

Faculty of Law in Belgrade The Faculty of Law of the University in Belgrade ( sr, Правни факултет Универзитета у Београду/''Pravni fakultet Univerziteta u Beogradu''), also known as the Belgrade Law School, is one of the first-tier educatio ...

from 1935. In 1938, he was elected as a member of the

Communist Party of Yugoslavia The League of Communists of Yugoslavia, mk, Сојуз на комунистите на Југославија, Sojuz na komunistite na Jugoslavija known until 1952 as the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, sl, Komunistična partija Jugoslavije mk ...

. In 1939, he went back to Prilep, where he became a member of the Local Committee of the CPY and in September was elected a member of the Provincial Committee of the CPY for Macedonia. After Yugoslavia was occupied by the Axis forces in 1941, Kuzman was sent by CPY to Western Macedonia, which was occupied by Albanian and Italian forces. There he attended a number of local conferences and meetings dedicated to the organisation of the antifascist struggle in that area. In early 1943, Kuzman became a member of the Main headquarters of the People's liberation army and Partisan units of Macedonia. On 25 February 1944, he went to

Skopje Skopje ( , , ; mk, Скопје ; sq, Shkup) is the capital and largest city of North Macedonia. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre. The territory of Skopje has been inhabited since at least 4000 BC; r ...

(then annexed by the Kingdom of Bulgaria) for a secret meeting of the Central Committee of the

Bulgarian Workers' Party The Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP; bg, Българска Комунистическа Партия (БКП), Balgarska komunisticheska partiya (BKP)) was the founding and ruling party of the People's Republic of Bulgaria from 1946 until 198 ...

. Bulgarian police discovered his location in the city and he was shot dead during the chase.

Legacy

He was named "Pitu" in

Pitu Guli Pitu Guli (; 1865–1903) was an Aromanian revolutionary in Ottoman Macedonia, a local leader of what is commonly referred to as the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO).Brown, K. (2003) ''The Past in Question: Modern Mace ...

's honor.Roumen Dontchev Daskalov; Diana Mishkova, Entangled Histories of the Balkans - Volume Two: Transfers of Political Ideologies and Institutions (2013), Balkan Studies Library, BRILL, , p. 536. The house where he was born and lived is now a memorial museum dedicated to him. There are a few of his busts in several cities in

North Macedonia North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Socialist Feder ...

. Also, a number of schools and streets in North Macedonia bear his name.

Biography

Legacy

References

See also