The Macedonian Secret Revolutionary Committee (MSRC) ( bg, Македонски Таен Революционен Комитет (МТРК) Macedonian: Македонски Таен Револуционерен Комитет(МТРК)) was founded in in

Plovdiv Plovdiv ( bg, Пловдив, ), is the second-largest city in Bulgaria, standing on the banks of the Maritsa river in the historical region of Thrace. It has a population of 346,893 and 675,000 in the greater metropolitan area. Plovdiv is the c ...

. It was developed later in Geneva in a secret, anarchistic, brotherhood called "Geneva group". The Bulgarian

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...

movement grew in the 1890s, and the territory of

Principality of Bulgaria The Principality of Bulgaria ( bg, Княжество България, Knyazhestvo Balgariya) was a vassal state under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. It was established by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. After the Russo-Turkish War ende ...

became a staging-point for anarchist activities against the Ottomans. Its activists were the students

Michail Gerdjikov } Mihail Gerdzhikov ( bg, Михаил Герджиков; 1877–1947) was a Bulgarian revolutionary and anarchist. Biography He was born in Plovdiv, then in the Ottoman Empire, in 1877. He studied at the French College in Plovdiv, where ...

, Petar Mandjukov, Petar Sokolov, Slavi Merdjanov, Dimitar Ganchev, Konstantin Antonov and others. In 1893 they started in Plovdiv revolutionary activity as founders of the MSRC, which was proclaimed there in 1895. At the end of 1897 part of the group moved to

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

(Lozana and Geneva), where it made close connections with the revolutionary immigration and founded in 1898 the so-called ''Geneva group'', an external extension of MSRC. The organisation was under strong

influence and rejected the nationalisms of the ethnic minorities of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

, favouring the idea about a

Balkan Federation The Balkan Federation project was a left-wing political movement to create a country in the Balkans by combining Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey. The concept of a Balkan federation emerged in the late 19th century from ...

. They proposed a "Macedonian state", which included also the Adrianople Vilajet (i.e. Macedonian-Thracian state) as part of the future Federation. They presumed that Bulgarian language, Bulgarian Church and Bulgarian education ought to be used there. However, the anarchists promoted the idea of the new state, for all the Macedonian "nationalities". Its members were to exert a significant influence on the development of the Macedonian and

Thracian The Thracians (; grc, Θρᾷκες ''Thrāikes''; la, Thraci) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied t ...

liberation movements. Between 1897 and 1898 two anarchist papers were published from Geneva - "Glas" and "Otmashtenie". In 1899 Gerdjikov came back to

Sofia Sofia ( ; bg, София, Sofiya, ) is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain in the western parts of the country. The city is built west of the Iskar river, and ha ...

and met there

Gotse Delchev Georgi Nikolov Delchev (Bulgarian language, Bulgarian/Macedonian language, Macedonian: Георги/Ѓорѓи Николов Делчев; 4 February 1872 – 4 May 1903), known as Gotse Delchev or Goce Delčev (''Гоце Делчев ...

. As a result, he and part from his comrades joined the

Internal Macedonian Adrianople Revolutionary Organization The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO; bg, Вътрешна Македонска Революционна Организация (ВМРО), translit=Vatrešna Makedonska Revoljucionna Organizacija (VMRO); mk, Внатр� ...

and the

Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee (SMAC), ( bg, Върховен македоно - одрински комитет, (ВМОК)), also known as Supreme Macedonian Committee was a Bulgarian paramilitary and political organization, active i ...

. Slavi Merdjanov moved to the Bulgarian school in

Salonika Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...

, where he worked as teacher and sparked some of the graduates with this ideas. They became later the so-called

Gemidzii The Boatmen of Thessaloniki ( bg, Гемиджиите; mk, Гемиџиите) or the Assassins of Salonica, was a Bulgarian anarchist group, active in the Ottoman Empire in the years between 1898 and 1903. The members of the Group were predo ...

. The weakening of the Committee's center allowed some activists from the periphery of the movement, to took attempt for creating an alternative organization, which was however marginal. So on January 12, 1899 in Geneva on behalf of the self-proclaimed ''Macedonian Central Committee'',

Georgi Kapchev Georgi may refer to: * Georgi (given name) * Georgi (surname) See also * Georgy (disambiguation) *Georgii (disambiguation) Georgii may refer to: ;Given name * Georgii Zantaraia (born 1987), Ukrainian judoka of Georgian origin * Georgii Karpechenko ...

sent a call to convene an International Congress, which to solve the Macedonian issue and to implement a program for the necessary reforms, but his attempt failed.Централният македонски комитет на Георги Капчев (1898 - 1899), в: Елдъров, Светлозар. Върховният македоно-одрински комитет и македоно-одринската организация в България (1895 - 1903), Иврай, 2003, стр. 241 - 268.

Notes

Sources

Списание „Анамнеза”, 1996, брой 2
Анархизмът в македоно–одринското национално-революционно движение: Солунските атентатори, Мариан Гяурски. In English: Magazine "Anamnesis", 1996, Issue 2, The anarchism in Macedonian and Thracian national revolutionary movement: The Thessaloniki bombers, Marian Giaourski.