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Boris Petrov Sarafov
Борис Петров Сарафов
Portrait of Boris Sarafov
Born12 July 1872
Libyahovo, Ottoman Empire (now Bulgaria)
Died28 November 1907(1907-11-28) (aged 35)
Sofia, Principality of Bulgaria

Boris Petrov Sarafov (Bulgarian and [Борис Петров Сарафов] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help)) (12 July 1872 in Libyahovo, Salonica Vilayet, Ottoman Empire, present-day Hadzhidimovo Municipality, Bulgaria  – 28 November 1907 in Sofia) was Bulgarian officer and Macedonian revolutionary,[1][2][3][4][5] of Macedonian ethnic origin.[6][7][8] He was one of the leaders of Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee (SMAC) and Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (VMORO).[9][10][11]

Biography

Boris Sarafov was born in 1872, in village Libyahovo (today Ilinden), Nevrokop region, in the Salonica Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire. He grew up schooled through the Bulgarian Exarchate's school in Nevrokop and the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki. Later Sarafov attended the Military school in Sofia, capital of the recently created Principality of Bulgaria. His training in this institution ended in 1894. Afterwards he worked for a short period of time as Bulgarian Army officer. In 1895 Sarafov became a member of the Macedonian Supreme Committee and was releaseаd from the Army. Than he just have led an insurgent operation in Ottoman Macedonia and occupied Melnik for a few days. Later he worked again as officer for a short time. Six years after the establishment of the Macedonian Supreme Committee based in Sofia, in 1899 he became its leader. As a rule, most of its leaders were with stronger connections with the governments, waging struggle for a direct unification with Bulgaria. During his time under the patronage of Prince Ferdinand, Sarafov was conjuring revolutionary ideas that later proved to be at odds with the policy of the government. Sarafov had apparently overstepped his prerogatives by plotting the assassination of a Romanian newspaper editor who had published unflattering remarks about the Committee. The journalist's murder brought Bulgaria and Romania to the brink of war. In 1901 Sarafov was stripped of his chairmanship and jailed for a month.

Sarafov was also a man of considerable charm. He had travelled widely in Europe raising funds for a war against the Turks. This included seducing the plain daughters or bored wives of wealthy men and persuading them to make donations to the revolutionary cause. In 1902 Sarafov was elected among the leaders of the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (IMARO). He participated in the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising and after all seemed lost, along with Dame Gruev attempted to exploit the Supremists’ former favourable position with the Bulgarian government, by sending it a desperate letter pleading for military assistance, but failed. The failure of the Ilinden Uprising also reignited the old rivalries between the varying factions of the Macedonian revolutionary movement. Sarafov resorted back to his old ways, turning against left-wing leading figures such as Yane Sandanski and Hristo Chernopeev, earning him much suspicion. The left-wing faction opposed Bulgarian nationalism and advocated the creation of a Balkan Federation with equality for all subjects and nationalities. The Centralist's faction of the IMARO, drifted more and more towards Bulgarian nationalism since 1904. The years 1905-1907 saw the slow split between the two factions. Finally, as a result Sarafov was sentenced to death from the leftists. He was assassinated in 1907 in Sofia together with Ivan Garvanov by Todor Panitsa, a trusted man of Yane Sandanski.[12]

References

  1. ^ Д-р Блаже Ристовски, "Крсте П. Мисирков (1874–1926) - прилог кон проучувањето на развитокот на македонската национална мисла", MANU,Skopje (1966).
  2. ^ “Since they could not find favorable ground for their national separatist activity in Bulgaria, the Macedonians who had moved from Belgrade to Sofia turned to organizing revolutionary bodies in Bulgaria and Macedonia. The celebrated Macedonian revolutionary separatists, such as Gotsк Delchev, were simply the pupils of the first generation of Macedonians who had studied in Serbia and Bulgaria. So, too, Sarafov and the revolutionaries who followed were simply the successors and heirs of these first revolutionaries but not the founders of the revolutionary organization.” - Krste Misirkov, “On Macedonian matters”, Sofia, 1903, pg. 72.
  3. ^ “The Macedonian movement is not a Bulgarian movement. The Macedonians are constituted as a particular nation, separate from Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece.” - Boris Sarafov interviewed for Pro Armenia: “Nouvelles d’Orient”, Paris, 25 avril 1901, pg. 87.
  4. ^ “We Macedonians consider ourselves to be an entirely separate national element, and we are not in the least disposed to allow our country to be seized by Bulgaria, Servia, or Greece.” - Sarafov interviewed for "The Times", “The Macedonian agitation”, London, April 12, 1901.
  5. ^ “The Macedonian leader Boris Sarafoff …embodies the idea of Macedonia for the Macedonians. A Macedonian by birth… he was an advocate of an independent Macedonia, of a new autonomous Balkan State, as independent as Bulgaria itself. In April 1901 he was arrested… the Bulgarian government deposed him from the leadership of the Macedonian movement and the Macedonian Committee was captured by the bulgarophile party…” (“Sunday Times”: THE MACEDONIAN LEADER, BORIS SARAFOV, May 24, 1903, pg. 9.)
  6. ^ “We, the Macedonians are not either Bulgarians nor Serbs, but simply Macedonians. The Macedonian people are a separate people from both Serbian and Bulgarian. We sympathize them all, and if they help us get free, they’ll get our gratitude, but they should not forget that Macedonia is for the Macedonians only.” – Sarafov’s statement on the front page of the “Macedonian voice” No. 1, Јune 9, 1913.
  7. ^ МАКЕДОНСКIЙ ГОЛОСЪ Органъ сторонниковъ независимой Македонiи, 9-06-1913 , Русија
  8. ^ M. Malecki, Z zagadnien dialaktologii macedonskiej, Rocznik Slawistyczny (Krakow), XIV (1938), p.142
  9. ^ The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation, Keith Brown, Princeton University Press, 2003, ISBN 0691099952p. 175.
  10. ^ In the autumn of 1903 Boris Sarafov in conjunction with Dame Gruev, both members of the general staff of the Bitola revolutionary district during suppression of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie uprising, wrote a letter to the Bulgarian government with demand for direct Bulgarian military intervention, arguing for this with the words: "With a view to the critical and fearsome situation, in which the Bulgarian population of Manastir Vilayet is at that moment" and "the circumstances and the danger, which threaten Bulgarian fatherland today". (Sources in English here and in Macedonian here.)
  11. ^ Who Are the Macedonians? Hugh Poulton, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2000, ISBN 1850655340, p. 55.
  12. ^ Articles from newspapers
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