Boris Petrov Sarafov
Portrait of Boris Sarafov
Native name
Борис Петров Сарафов
Born(1872-06-12)12 June 1872
Libyahovo, Ottoman Empire
Died28 November 1907(1907-11-28) (aged 35)
Sofia, Principality of Bulgaria
Allegiance
Service/branch Bulgarian Army
RankLieutenant
Alma materSofia Military Academy
Signature
Letter from the General Staff of the Bitola Revolutionary District to the Bulgarian Government, signed by Sarafov and requisitioning military intervention for the salvation of the local Bulgarians.[note 1]

Boris Petrov Sarafov (Bulgarian and Macedonian: Борис Петров Сарафов; 12 June 1872 – 28 November 1907) was a Bulgarian Army officer and revolutionary, one of the leaders of Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee (SMAC) and Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO).[1][2][3] He is considered an ethnic Macedonian in North Macedonia,[4] having identified occasionally as a Macedonian in his life.[5]

Biography

Boris Sarafov was born in 1872 in the village Libyahovo, Nevrokop region, in the Salonica vilayet of the Ottoman Empire (today Ilinden, Bulgaria).[6] 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 of His Majesty in Sofia, the 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 released from the Army. He led an insurgent operation in Ottoman Macedonia and occupied Melnik for a few days. Later he worked again as an 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 Ștefan Mihăileanu, 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. By 1904, Sarafov had a reputation of profiteering and embezzling funds from his organization. He was described by William Curtis in 1903 as "a notorious gambler and dissolute politician" and by Joseph Swire in 1939 as "violent, tiresome, unscrupulous, with a genius for publicity."[7]

Prior to the Ilinden Uprising, Sarafov was criticized as pro-Serbian, following actions considered anti-Bulgarian. In 1902, Sarafov visited Belgrade trying to gain Serbian support for a "Macedonia for the Macedonians" to oppose the Bulgarian annexationists in Macedonia.[8] In November 1903, Sarafov made another visit there, when he obtained an significant grant of money from the Serbian government for allowing the entry of the first Serbian bands into Macedonia, which decision was sharply criticised by other IMARO activists.[9]

In 1902 Sarafov was elected among the leaders of the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (IMARO). He supported the start of the Ilinden Uprising and participated in it.[10] After all seemed lost, he along with Dame Gruev attempted to exploit the Supremacists’ 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 increasingly 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 by the leftists. He was assassinated in 1907 in Sofia together with Ivan Garvanov by Todor Panitsa, a trusted man of Yane Sandanski.[11]

Legacy

A criticism of Sarafov is that he was more concerned with his own agenda than the people he claimed to represent. During his life, views of Sarafov varied by account. Edith Durham wrote in 1903 following the Ilinden Uprising that he was unpopular in the Lake Prespa region. However, in January 1904 the British consul in Monastir (Bitola) reported that he was immensely popular there. In 1903, Krste Misirkov claimed Sarafov was in opposition to the Bulgarian administration.[12] Sarafov in 1901 stated in an interview that Macedonians had a distinct "national element"; the following year, he stated: "We the Macedonians are neither Serbs nor Bulgarians, but simply Macedonians."[5] Yet, Sarafov maintained a balanced, pro-Bulgarian policy, which was opposed by the more radical, leftist, and pro-autonomist faction.[13]

In PR Bulgaria and SR Macedonia, Sarafov was not well received in the official historiographies.[14] The public in North Macedonia still perceives Sarafov as a controversial Supremist i.e pro-Bulgarian revolutionary.[15][16][17][18] As part of the controversial Skopje 2014 project, a monument to Sarafov was erected in the center of the city in 2013.[19] The monument was dismantled without explanation in 2016 by municipal authorities.[20]

A street is named after Sarafov in Skopje.

In Bulgaria, streets in various towns are named after Sarafov.

Notes

  1. ↑ Letter No. 534 from the General Staff of the Second Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Region to the Bulgarian Government on the position of the insurgent Bulgarian population, requesting military intervention from Bulgaria, September 9, 1903, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of History, Bulgarian Language Institute, "Macedonia. Documents and materials", Sofia, 1978, part III, No.92: "To the Esteemed Government of the Principality of Bulgaria. In view of the critical and terrible situation of the Bulgarian population of the Monastir Vilayet following the devastations and cruelties perpetrated by the Turkish troops and bashibazouks, in view of the fact that these devastations and cruelties continue systematically, and that one cannot foresee how far they will reach; in view, furthermore, of the fact that here everything Bulgarian is running the risk of perishing and being obliterated without a trace by violence, hunger and by approaching poverty, the General Staff considers it its duty to draw the attention of the Esteemed Bulgarian Government to the fatal consequences for the Bulgarian nation, if it fails to discharge its duty to its own brothers here in an impressive and energetic manner, made imperative by force of circumstances and by the danger threatening the common Bulgarian homeland at the present moment ..."

References

  1. ↑ The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation, Keith Brown, Princeton University Press, 2003, ISBN 0691099952, p. 175
  2. ↑ 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".
  3. ↑ Who Are the Macedonians? Hugh Poulton, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2000, ISBN 978-1-85065-534-3, p. 55.
  4. ↑ Македонска енциклопедија, том II (in Macedonian). Скопје: Македонска академија на науките и уметностите. 2009. pp. 1300–1301. ISBN 9786082030241.
  5. 1 2 Alexis Heraclides (2020). The Macedonian Question and the Macedonians. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781000289404. Sarafov, while travelling in Europe for the Macedonian cause, had asserted, when chairman of the Supreme Revolutionary Committee, in an interview to a Viennese newspaper (in 1901), that the Macedonians possessed a distinct 'national character'. And a year later, when he was no more chairman, he claimed that 'We the Macedonians are neither Serbs nor Bulgarians, but simply Macedonians. The Macedonian people exist independently of the Bulgarian and Serbian [people]. . .. Macedonia exists only for the Macedonians'.
  6. ↑ Biographical Dictionary of Central and Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, Wojciech Roszkowski and Jan Kofman, Routledge, 2016, ISBN 9781317475941, p. 884.
  7. ↑ Keith Brown (2004). "Villains and Symbolic Pollution in the Narratives of Nations". In Maria Todorova (ed.). Balkan Identities: Nation and Memory. New York University Press. p. 242.
  8. ↑ Keith Brown (2004). "Villains and Symbolic Pollution in the Narratives of Nations". In Maria Todorova (ed.). Balkan Identities: Nation and Memory. New York University Press. p. 244. Sarafov himself reports a visit to Belgrade in 1902, where he tried to win Serbian backing for the project of 'Macedonia for Macedonians', pointing out that only by this means could the oppose the annexationists among Macedonian circles who were effectively agents of Bulgarian policy... Sarafov was anything but a straightforward pawn of Bulgarian policy; criticised by some for excessive pro-Serbianism, his own position was strongly autonomist... he can easily be labelled as anti-Bulgarian
  9. ↑ Dimitar Bechev, Historical Dictionary of Republic of Macedonia, Scarecrow Press, 2009, ISBN 1538119625, p. 198.
  10. ↑ Dimitar Bechev, Historical Dictionary of North Macedonia, Rowman & Littlefield, 2019, ISBN 9781538119624, p. 142.
  11. ↑ Paramilitarism in the Balkans: Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Albania, 1917-1924, Dmitar Tasić, Oxford University Press, 2020, ISBN 9780198858324, p. 164.
  12. ↑ Keith Brown (2004). "Villains and Symbolic Pollution in the Narratives of Nations". In Maria Todorova (ed.). Balkan Identities: Nation and Memory. New York University Press. p. 242-244. Edith Durham, delivering relief after the Uprising in the area around Lake Prespa, states that she had expected to find Sarafov in favour, but that for the most part, he was very unpopular... A major point of criticism of Sarafov was that he was disconnected from the people whom he claimed to represent, being more concerned with his own agenda than that of the movement... The British consul in Monastir, contra Durham's account, recorded in January 1904 that Sarafov appeared to still enjoy 'immense personal prestige everywhere in this district where every village has been visited by him'... Writing in 1903, Krste Misirkov made a rather different claim regarding Sarafov, that he was very much at odds with the Bulgarian administration, in his activism to separate Macedonian from Bulgarian politics
  13. ↑ Raymond Detrez (2014) Historical Dictionary of Bulgaria, Historical Dictionaries of Europe, Rowman & Littlefield, p. 393, ISBN 1442241802.
  14. ↑ Dimitar Bechev, Historical Dictionary of North Macedonia, Rowman & Littlefield, 2019, ISBN 1538119625, p. 264.
  15. ↑ "Concerning the individuals assessed as contradictory (Boris Saratov, Hristo Matov, etc.), of which special emphasis is made on Todor Alexandrov, the main remark is that they belong to pro-Bulgarian wing of IMRO, that they were in constant conflict with the "left", that they nurtured Bulgarian national feelings and that they were in direct or indirect relation with the Bulgarian court." For more see: Марија Ташева, Социологијата на македонската национална свест на Славко Милосавлевски (Slavko Milosavlevski's Sociology of Macedonian national consciousness), p. 30-31; 43 in: Sociological Review. UDK 316.347 (=163.3) pp. 25-49.
  16. ↑ Сандански најголем заштитник на македонството, В. Цветаноски, Утрински весник, Број 1759, 16 октомври 2006., archived from the original on 2011-08-19, retrieved 2009-11-10
  17. ↑ Списание "Форум", бр.130, 5 юни 2003 г., archived from the original on 2008-02-17, retrieved 2008-02-17
  18. ↑ "Ќе имаше ли Илинден без Сарафов?!". Nova Makedonija (in Macedonian). 2010-12-25. Archived from the original on 2011-03-03.
  19. ↑ Sinisa Jakov Marusic (2013-04-08). "Macedonia Monument-Building Drive Enters New Phase". Balkan Insight (BIRN).
  20. ↑ Tamara Stojkova (2018-02-03). "Каде исчезна споменикот на Борис Сарафов ?". Kanal 5 (in Macedonian).

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