Goce Delcev (Gotse Deltchev) was a teacher. He was born in 1872 in
Kukush (the Bulgarian name of the town), north of Thessaloniki
(Salonica, Solun, Saloniki). There is no doubt about his cultural
background (as opposed to his convictions later in life) - it was
Bulgarian to the core. He studied at a Bulgarian gymnasium in
Saloniki. He furthered his education at a military academy in Sofia.
He was a schoolteacher and a guerilla fighter and in both capacities
he operated in the areas that are today North-Central Greece,
Southwestern Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia. He felt equally
comfortable in all three regions. He was shot to death by the Turks
in Banitsa, then a Bulgarian village, today, a Greek one. It was in
a spring day in May 1903.
The death of this sad but steely eyed, heavily moustached youth was
sufficient to ignite the Illinden uprising three months later. It
erupted on the feast of Saint Illiya (Sveti Ilija). Peasants sold
their sacrificial bulls - the fruits of months of labour - and
bought guns with the proceeds. It started rather innocuously in the
hotbed of ethnic unrest, Western Macedonia - telegraph wires were
cut, some tax registers incinerated. The IMRO collaborated in this
with the pro-Bulgarian organization Vzhovits.
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