Български
Today we mark 140 years since the establishment of the Bulgarian Secret Central Revolutionary Committee.
On 10 February 1885, in Plovdiv, a group of revolutionaries and participants in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) founded a Secret Revolutionary Committee. Its aim was to lead the liberation movement in Macedonia and Thrace and to unite all Bulgarian lands.
In April, the committee took its final form as the Bulgarian Secret Central Revolutionary Committee. Its mission was to achieve the unification of Eastern Rumelia with the Principality of Bulgaria through a ‘moral and armed revolution’. The driving force behind the initiative was the revolutionary, journalist, writer and statesman Zachary Stoyanov – the committee’s chairman.
His close associate, the volunteer fighter and politician Ivan Andonov, recounts the event:
‘The stirring of spirits over the Macedonian question had created a mood among the Bulgarian population in both Bulgarias, ready to begin serious work. On 5 February 1885, the Macedonian Spiro Kostov came to me and declared that in me and in Zachary Stoyanov he saw people capable of engaging in a revolutionary struggle for the liberation of the Macedonian Bulgarians from Turkish oppression.
On 10 February we convened a secret meeting in my house with trusted friends, sincerely devoted to the national cause. At this meeting the following were elected as the central committee in Plovdiv: Zachary Stoyanov, chairman; my humble self, Ivan Andonov, secretary; Todor Gatev, treasurer and as members: Petar Zografski, volunteer fighter; Karayovev, Macedonian teacher; Spas Turchev, revolutionary from the April Uprising; Lieutenant Ganyu Atanasov, Plovdiv military prosecutor; Ivan Stoyanovich, secretary at the Directorate of Justice and Spiro Kostov, volunteer from Veles, Macedonia. At that same session the chairman placed a sabre and a revolver on the table and administered the oath. We each contributed five Turkish liras to cover expenses. Afterwards we wrote to Stoyu Filipov in Chirpan to make us a seal bearing the inscription ‘Macedonian Committee’ with a lion in the center.
The aim of the committee was not only the liberation of Macedonia but also the unification of the entire Bulgarian nation, fragmented by the Berlin Congress. A commission was appointed to draw up the revolutionary statute of the committee. On 15 February we sent special letters to the following towns, addressed to prominent individuals with a public and patriotic past, requesting them to form similar oath-bound committees whose goal would be the liberation of Macedonia and the unification of Eastern Rumelia with Northern Bulgaria, namely in Stanimaka, Chirpan, Golyamo Konare, Sliven, Yambol, Haskovo, Stara Zagora, Tatar Pazardzhik, Burgas, Panagyurishte, etc.‘
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