Yane Sandanski, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetYane Sandanski
Bulgarian revolutionary
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Vlahi, Blagoevgrad Province, Bulgaria
About Yane Sandanski
- Yane Ivanov Sandanski or Jane Ivanov Sandanski (Bulgarian: ??? ?????????, Macedonian: ???? ?????????) (18 May 1872 – 22 April 1915), was a Bulgarian revolutionary recognised as a national hero in Bulgaria and North Macedonia. In his youth Sandanski was interested in Bulgarian politics and had a career as governor of the local prison in Dupnitsa.
- Then he was involved in the anti-Ottoman struggle, joining initially the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee (SMAC), but later switched to the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organisation (IMARO).
- Sandanski became one of the leaders of the IMARO in the Serres revolutionary district and head of the extreme leftist wing of the organisation.
- He supported the idea of a Balkan Federation, and Macedonia as an autonomous state within its framework, as an ultimate solution of the national problems in the area.
- During the Second Constitutional Era he became an Ottoman politician and entrepreneur, collaborating with the Young Turks and founded the Bulgarian People's Federative Party.
- Sandanski took up arms on the side of Bulgaria during the Balkan Wars (1912–13).
- Finally he was involved in Bulgarian public life again, but was eventually killed by the rivalling IMARO right-wing faction activists. Sandanski's legacy remains disputed among Bulgarian and Macedonian historiography today.
- Macedonian historians refers to him in an attempt to demonstrate the existence of Macedonian nationalism or at least proto-nationalism within a part of the local revolutionary movement at his time.
- Despite the allegedly "anti-Bulgarian" autonomism and federalism of Sandanski, it is unlikely he had developed Macedonian national identity in a narrow sens?, or he regarded the Bulgarian Exarchists in Ottoman Macedonia as a separate nation from Bulgarians.
- Contrary to the assertions of Skopje, his "separatism" represented a supranational project, not national.
- More, the compatriots, who convinced Sandanski to accept such leftist ideas, were Bulgarian socialists, most of whom were non-Macedonian in origin.
- The designation Macedonian then was an umbrella term covering different nationalities in the area and when applied to the local Slavs, it denoted mainly the regional Bulgarian community.
- However, contrary to Bulgarian assertions, his ideas of a separate Macedonian political entity, have stimulated the subsequent development of Macedonian nationalism.
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