As is usually the case in the bloodied geopolitical sandbox known as
the Balkans, an international peacekeeping force intervened. Yet it
was - again, habitually - too late, too little.
What made Delcev, rather his death, the trigger of such an
outpouring of emotions was the IMRO (VMRO in Macedonian and in
Bulgarian). The Illinden uprising was the funeral of a man who was a
hope. It was the ululating grieving of a collective deprived of
vengeance or recourse. It was a spasmodic breath taken in the most
suffocating of environments. This is not to say that IMRO was
monolithic or that Delcev was an Apostle (as some of his
hagiographers would have him). It was not and he was far from it.
But he and his two comrades, Jane (Yane) Sandanski and Damyan (Dame)
Gruev had a vision. They had a dream. The IMRO is the story of a
dream turned nightmare, of the absolute corruption of absolute power
and of the dangers of inviting the fox to fight the wolf.
The original "Macedonian Revolutionary Organization" (MRO) was
established in Sofia. The distinction between being a Macedonian and
being a Macedonian-Bulgarian was not sharp, to use a polite
understatement. The Bulgarians "proper" regarded the Macedonians as
second class, primitive and uncultured Bulgarian relatives who
inhabit a part of Bulgaria to the east.
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