Talk:Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising

Disruptive editing pattern

User:Anonymoususer95, please discuss here point by point your objections. Thanks. Jingiby (talk) 16:27, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

The article currently says that the uprising was "supported by Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionaries." This claim is cited to five sources:

• Tschavdar Marinov, "We the Macedonians, The Paths of Macedonian Supra-Nationalism (1878–1912)", in We, the People: Politics of National Peculiarity in Southeastern Europe Central European University Press, 2009, ISBN 9639776289, pp. 107–137: accessible for free here (https://books.openedition.org/ceup/890).
• Tchavdar Marinov, Famous Macedonia, the Land of Alexander: Macedonian identity at the crossroads of Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian nationalism in Entangled Histories of the Balkans – Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies with Roumen Daskalov and Tchavdar Marinov as ed., Brill, 2013, ISBN 900425076X, pp. 273–330 (accessible free here: https://archive.org/details/1daskalovRTchavdarMEdEntangledHistoriesOfTheBalkans/mode/2up).
• Loring M. Danforth, The Macedonian conflict: ethnic nationalism in a transnational world, Princeton University Press, Danforth, Loring M. 1997, ISBN 0691043566, p. 64
• Chris Kostov, Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900–1996, Volume 7 of Nationalisms across the globe, Peter Lang, 2010, ISBN 3034301960, pp. 87–88 (available free here: https://archive.org/details/contestedethnici0000kost).
• İpek Yosmaoğlu, Blood Ties: Religion, Violence and the Politics of Nationhood in Ottoman Macedonia, 1878–1908, Cornell University Press, 2013, ISBN 0801469791, pp. 15–16.

As far as I can tell, none of these sources use the phrase "Macedonian Bulgarian" to refer to the participants in the uprising. Furthermore, three of the sources appear to expressly criticize the use of this phrase:

• In "Famous Macedonia", on page 275, Marinov describes "Macedonian Bulgarian" as a Bulgarian "exclusive nationalist conception" of Macedonia.
• In "We, The Macedonians", Marinov also says that "today, the Bulgarian and the Macedonian historiographies are still struggling for the 'right' definition of identity for the local [Macedonian] Slavs: 'Macedonian Bulgarians,' according to the scholars from Sofia, or 'ethnic Macedonians,' according to those from Skopje."

This makes clear that by using the phrase "Macedonian Bulgarian" to refer to historical figures claimed by both ethnic Macedonian and Bulgarian nationalists, we are siding with the Bulgarian nationalist position, contrary to the principle of WP:NPOV. On page 9, Yosmaoglu says regarding the use of ethnic identifiers in writing about this topic that "My solution, dictated by necessity, is to use terms such as "Greek", "Bulgarian", and "Vlach" in quotation marks and to convey the complexity of the situation by refraining from using ethnic epithets whenever possible." This is the approach we should be using in the article.

The same three sources also appear to directly contradict the claim that the participants in the uprising can be described as Bulgarian:

• In We the Macedonians, Marinov says the following about IMRO around the time of the uprising. They advocated a "political separatism" that rejected union with Bulgaria (p. 300). They "promoted a separate political loyalty, different from one to the Bulgarian state. This 'Macedonian' loyalty was particularly emphasized in leftist political discourse. The Macedonian socialists and anarchists had already gone even further in distancing themselves from mainstream Bulgarian nationalism ... The socialists labeled national ambitions “stupid chauvinism and patriotism,” especially “Bulgarian chauvinism,” and countered that the “Macedonian” ( makedonetsat ) should by no means be regarded as a Bulgarian, Serb or Greek, as he was, above all, a political “slave” (rob) In some articles of the newspaper (as well as in party documents of the Macedonian socialist group), the term “Macedonian people” ( makedonski narod) is contrasted with the “Bulgarian people” (balgarski narod). The socialists had little support in Macedonia, but some of them held important positions in the Internal Organization" (pp. 301 - 302).
• In "Famous Macedonia", Marinov again suggests that IMRO's ideology around the time of the uprising was too complex to simply describe it as Bulgarian. He specifically says "All these aspects of the organization’s activity make visibly difficult its translation into the terms of Macedonian nationalism. However, although they do not contradict the idea of Bulgarian ethnicity and of Bulgarian nation within Macedonia, the aforementioned autonomist and independentist stances may hardly be seen as an expression of a mainstream Bulgarian nationalism or, to put it into indigenous terms, of a 'Bulgarian state nationalism.'".
• Finally, Yosmaoglu says on page 15 about IMRO's support for autonomy for Macedonia: "As problematic as it is to accept the plans for an autonomous entity modeled after Switzerland as the progenitor of the modern Macedonian nation-state, simply capitulating to Bulgarian nationalists’ claims (i.e., that Macedonian Slavs were in fact Bulgarian)... does not do justice to the people who lost their lives as these competing national projects claimed their loyalty. Here, it would behoove us to pause and consider whether by thinking of them as either this or that we place ourselves in an analytical straight jacket symptomatic of our own internalization of the notion that national consciousness is inherently exclusive and immutable." He adds that "There was, in fact, an undeniable attachment to the ideas of autonomy for Macedonia and action independent of Bulgaria in the program and manifestos of IMRO from its inception, which can reasonably be considered as indication of a separate Macedonian identity."

As these quotations show, Marinov and Yosmaoglu both argue that the ideology of IMRO around the time of the uprising was too complex to simply identify it or its members as "Bulgarian". This contradicts that claim that these sources are cited to support. Anonymoususer95 (talk) 17:02, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi. All these peculiarities in the identity of the Macedonian revolutionaries thеn are explained in the article about the Macedonian Bulgarians. The process of the separation of a distinct Macedonian nation is also described there. Some time ago, in this article, it was written simply about Bulgarians in Macedonia. After that, we began to write on Wikipedia on Macedonian Bulgarians. This term more accurately describes this specific case. Also, if you read this article, you will see that the case of separation is also discussed here. And last but not at least, the first statute of the IMRO limited the membership in the organization to Bulgarians only. As Denis Ljuljanović has pointed on p. 211 in the book Imagining Macedonia in the Age of Empire. State Policies, Networks and Violence (1878-1912), (ISBN:9783643914460): Its primary name Bulgarian Macedonian - Adrianople Revolutionary Committees emphasized a Bulgarian element that was also evident in its first Constitution (Ustav). Per its Article 3: "Membership is open to any Bulgarian, irrespective of sex, who has not compromised himself in the eyes of the community by dishonest and immoral actions, and who promises to be of service in some way to the revolutionary cause of liberation." Per Art. 2. To achieve this goal they [the committees] shall raise the awareness of self-defense in the Bulgarian population... All its basic documents were written in standard Bulgarian language. The first statute of the IMRO was modelled after the statute of the earlier Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee from which IMRO adopted also its symbol: the Bulgarian lion and its motto: Svoboda ili smart, etc.

Now briefly about the opinion of the two quoted authors on the issue of the national affiliation of the revolutionaries from the IMRO at the beginning of the 20th century.

First about Marinov's opinion. See here page 3 in Historiographical Revisionism and Re-Articulation of Memory in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia: Without entering into the intricate details, here is an example: during the Ottoman period, the IMRO was named, most of the time, Secret Macedono-Adrianopolitan Organization, and, after 1905, Internal Macedono-Adrianopolitan Revolutionary Organization (VMORO). It was active not only in Macedonia but also in Thrace – in the Vilayet of Adrianople (modern Edirne in Turkey). This fact is still difficult to explain from a Macedonian historiographic viewpoint: it suggests that Macedonian revolutionaries in the Ottoman period did not differentiate between ‘ethnic Macedonians’ and ‘ethnic Bulgarians’ from Thrace. Moreover, as their own writings attest, they often saw themselves as ‘Bulgarians’ (or ‘Macedonian Bulgarians’) and wrote in standard Bulgarian rather than in the Macedonian dialect.

And now for the other author's opinion on the matter, i.e. on F.A.K. Yasamee' opinion, please look at his article Nationality in the Balkans: The case of the Macedonians: Formally, IMRO did not seek Macedonia's annexation to Bulgaria, but only Macedonia's autonomy - a point which has encouraged misleading suggestions that IMRO viewed the Slavs of Macedonia as an independent "Macedonian" nation, ethnically separate from the Bulgarians. In reality, IMRO never questioned the Bulgarian national identity of the Macedonian Slavs; its apparent preference for autonomy over annexation was essentially a matter of political tactics, and at most, implied a recognition that the presence of numerous non-Bulgarians in Macedonia might render outright annexation to Bulgaria impractical. Jingiby (talk) 06:16, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

@Anonymoususer95 I agree with the removal of the sources which do not even mention the uprising. So, we should add replacement sources instead. For example, we could add Region, Regional Identity and Regionalism in Southeastern Europe (ISBN 9783825813871). You can check pages 135 and 136. Who are the Macedonians? (ISBN 9781850652380) is another option as well. The statements need to be properly and relevantly sourced. Sources could be found for the Aromanian participation as well. StephenMacky1 (talk) 11:58, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

StephenMacky1, What do you mean by de-sourcing? I find your point a bit unclear. If one of the quoted sources also mentions the uprising itself, but it also includes the quote indicated here now, what should be removed? The entire source, or to remove the quote only, or to additionally cite the pages where the uprising is mentioned and adding additional citations? Jingiby (talk) 12:36, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

If there are sources that mention the uprising, then they can be moved to the body and be used in a different context. The body could use more sources. The sources I suggested directly support the statements in the lead. They discuss ethnicity in the context of the uprising. StephenMacky1 (talk) 12:40, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

There are a number of problems with this:

First, as I explain above, Yosmaoglu and Marinov (in both "Famous Macedonia" and "We, the Macedonians" clearly argue that:

1) IMRO's ideology and approach to nationalism in the 1890s and early 1910s was too complex to simply identify its members as "Bulgarian"

2) To identify Macedonian Slavs claimed by both modern Bulgarian and Macedonian nationalists as "Bulgarian" is inappropriate because it ignores the complexity of national identity at the time and adopts the Bulgarian nationalist position.

This is an important scholarly view that should be represented in the article, irrespective of what other sources say.

Also, Ipek Yosmaoglu and F.A.K. Yamasee are different people.

Regarding the book Who are the Macedonians (Indiana University Press, 1995) by Hugh Poulton, he says on pages 53-54 that "Thus almost from the outset, VMRO [IMRO] was fatally divided in its aims between protagonists of Macedonia for Bulgaria, and of a separate Macedonian state, existing either within some form of federation or independently. Later, faced with differing situations, VMRO veered first one way and then the other. The nuances between the two camps have fuelled endless polemics in recent times between the Bulgarians, who naturally support the former view, and the post-Second World War Yugoslav Macedonian regime who as naturally stress the latter."

So Poulton agrees that IMRO cannot merely be described as "Bulgarian" and shows that the Macedonian and Bulgarian nationalist perspectives on IMRO are equally convincing.Anonymoususer95 (talk) 13:26, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Obviously, we read the same things, but understand them differently. These works have been debated here to death for the last 20 years and some consensus has been reached on the matter. As the Macedonian historian Ivan Katardziev claimed the first name of the organization in the 1890s was Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianopolitan Revolutionary Committees. He believed that practically, neither the left nor the right wing members of IMRO ever questioned their Bulgarian origin. According to him, their separatist concepts have been confused in North Macedonia. Katardziev explained that Macedonian political separatism is one thing, while Macedonian national separatism, which was developed especially after the Second World War, is quite another. According to him, even the members of the left wing of IMRO, who in 1934 formally accepted the Resolution of the Comintern on the existence of a separate Macedonian nation and language, after 1944 still continued to feel themselves de facto as Bulgarians and therefore were isolated or repressed in Communist Yugoslavia. And here we are talking about the year 1903. Please, read the following articles, their sources and the discussions on the talk pages carefully before continuing the discussion: First statute of the IMRO; Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee; Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization; Bulgarian People's Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization; Bulgarian Constitutional Clubs, People's Federative Party (Bulgarian Section); Internal Thracian Revolutionary Organisation; Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (United); Bulgarian Action Committees; Autonomy for Macedonia and Adrianople regions, Independent Macedonia (IMRO), Independent Macedonia (1944), Macedonian nationalism; Historiography in North Macedonia and Macedonian Bulgarians. Thanks. Jingiby (talk) 05:23, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I strongly suspect that you are misrepresenting Katardziev as well. In what writing did Katardziev make these claims? Please provide a complete citation, quotation, and page number: see WP:BURDEN, WP:NONENG.

"Wikipedia is not a reliable source for citations elsewhere on Wikipedia": see WP:WINARS. Pointing to a dozen other articles is an obvious attempt at deflection from the misrepresentation of sources in this article. In any case, those other articles also seem to be rife with misrepresentation of sources; for example, the article Macedonian Bulgarians misrepresents Poulton. I see no consensus about the misrepresented sources; for example, another user previously pointed out the misrepresentation of the same sources on this talk page.

If you are unwilling to acknowledge this problem, it seems that fixing this problem of misrepresentation will require a broader solution to address all the affected pages, perhaps through the WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Anonymoususer95 (talk) 12:51, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Hoping to see a reply here. --Local hero ^talk 20:58, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Two distinct uprisings?

Hello everyone. I see that ideas which have been rejected several times here are being revived again, which are alternative views and are supported mainly by Macedonian historiography and a few researchers outside North Macedonia. These are the minority views about two, and why not three different uprisings, which, although led by the same organization, actually had different goals. This is close to the views about two different peoples, Bulgarian and Macedonian, who participated in two different uprisings, etc. If such a view will be accepted, this should also lead to the separation of the article. Please stop the edit-war and the attempts drastically to change the introduction based on a single source written by a non-historian. This is not a serious approach. For now, I move this alternative opinion to the section Controversy at the bottom. Jingiby (talk) 07:01, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

An example is İpek Yosmaoğlu, who is an associate professor of History at Northwestern University, an expert of the late Ottoman Empire, Ph.D., Princeton, 2005. She is the author of Blood Ties: Religion, Violence, and the Politics of Nationhood, 1878-1908 (Cornell University Press, 2015) where on p. 35, in a chapter dedicated to the Uprising, Yosmaoğlu wrote on a single uprising led by the IMRO, whose members were regarded by the contemporary observers as pro-Bulgarian activists:

Despite these setbacks, the uprising broke out in Monastir province on August 2, the day of Saint Elijah, or Ilinden. The insurgents first cut telegram lines and disabled the railroads to halt communications across the region. The greatest accomplishment of the rebels was the capture of Kruševo, where they proclaimed a short-lived republic after they set government buildings on fire and killed the officials. After a few days, on the Feast of the Transfiguration, or Preobrazhenie, the rebellion spread to Adrianople province, where the rebels were briefly able to set up a government in Strandja. In principle, the uprising was meant to be an invitation to the entire population, without respect to language or religion, to rise up against tyranny, but in practice this proved to be an improbable ideal. In fact, in many places the insurgents did attack Patriarchists and Muslims despite prior orders to the contrary. Other acts such as singing Bulgarian marching songs and waving the Bulgarian flag undermined the committee claim that this was a general uprising and associated the insurgents—more or less accurately—with Bulgaria.

Also, above is my opinion from 2022, where I have cited my opinion from 2014 as follows: According to Ivo Banac "The National Question in Yugoslavia. Origins, History, Politics", Cornell University Press, 1984, pp. 307-328, the IMARO movement in 1903 was movement, which embraced both Macedonia and Adrianople Thrace regions and the insurrection in August 1903 had two major centres - the Vilayet of Bitola and the Vilajet of Adrianople. The separation of the Preobrazhenie from the title of this article is in conflict with the historical facts and their non-nationalist interpretation. Keep in mind that this is article not only about the present-day ethnic Macedonian historical myth of Ilinden, but about the historical events, and the difference is between the much later Yugoslav communist concept (+Ilinden; - Preobrazhenie) and the historical event (+Ilinden; +Preobrazhenie;) is more than obvious. However, the first problem before such an interpretation stems also in particular from the combined Macedono-Adrianopolitan character of the IMARO. The statutes and directives of the Central Committee, as well as the other official documents of the Organization concern not only the Macedonian people but also the Adrianopolitan people, i.e. the Bulgarians (the IMARO membership was allowed only for Bulgarians till 1902) and (in theory) other nationalities inhabiting both areas. In the specialized literature as the Historical Dictionary of Bulgaria, Raymond Detrez, Scarecrow Press, 2006, ISBN 0810849011, the Uprising is called: Ilinden-Preobrazhenie. In the Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia, Dimitar Bechev, Scarecrow Press, 2009, ISBN 0810862956, it is called: Ilinden (Ilinden-Preobrazhenie) Uprising. Hristo Silyanov was the first historian who systematically described the Uprising after having participate in it. In his memoires, he used the designation linden-Preobrazhenie. Jingiby (talk) 09:00, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Page name?

Hi Jingiby (talk), I see in the previous name discussion that even you have said that they were two uprisings and that the name Ilinden-Preobrazhnie Uprising is pushed by Bulgarian historians, you cited there The National Question in Yugoslavia. Origins, History, Politics by Ivo Banac, but on p. 316 Banac as others make a clear distinction between the two uprisings, whether they had the same goal is disputed, as the IMRO's ultimate goal itself was not clear and it is disputed by many independent authors as well. Also, the primary name of this page should be Ilinden Uprising since this is how most of the independent sources call it, even the author you pointed out İpek Yosmaoğlu calls it like this, here are just part of sources where it is addressed as Ilinden Uprising, none of them adds the Preobrazhenie Uprising to the name. 19999o (talk) 23:20, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

These are several distinct questions, asked in different contexts. One is whether there were two or more separate uprisings. The other is what should be the name of the uprising to be used here and the third is whether, when using the name Ilinden Uprising, the authors understand only one or all of the rebellions that broke out from the shores of the Black Sea to these of Lake Ohrid. So far, the prevailing opinion here is that there was one uprising, consisting of several rebellions. At the same time, the combined name Ilinden - Preobrazhenie uprising is used here, which was voted for twice. And thirdly, most of the authors who have studied this issue in depth, regardless of what name they use, assume that the series of rebellions that broke out in the summer of 1903, organized by the IMARO, formed one common uprising. This of course has nothing to do with the views of historians in North Macedonia. Jingiby (talk) 03:51, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

I plan on improving the article in the following days. It is about time this article gets into a better shape. If you think the article's name should be changed, I do not think there is anything from stopping you from requesting a name change through WP:RM. StephenMacky1 (talk) 20:48, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

It is indeed the appropriate title @19999o:. Please see Talk:Ilinden–Preobrazhenie_Uprising/Archive_4#Requested_move_6_August_2022 for the last RM discussion. All of the opposition was from Bulgarian editors, many of whom came out of inactivity to participate. There was little effort on their part to address my arguments. Furthermore, there was no input from non-Balkan editors. --Local hero ^talk 19:06, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

I also support the change of the page 'Ilinden Uprising' as it is more concise and the majority of non-Bulgarian sources refer to it as such without the pairing to an event on the other side of the Balkans. Optimally it should be split into two articles about the separate events. I would encourage any non-Balkan editors to voice their opinions as this is a prime example of an article that has been stagnant due to the same handful of Bulgarian editors pushing back. Kromid (talk) 09:29, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

No source discusses Preobrazhenie without Ilinden though, although there are many sources which just discuss Ilinden. I do not see how that warrants a split. You are welcome to initiate a RfC, RM or whatever you think is necessary. Hopefully that will get the attention of non-Balkan editors. StephenMacky1 (talk) 09:39, 20 May 2025 (UTC)