Anti-Ottoman revolt in the Balkans (1903)
The Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising, or simply the Ilinden Uprising, of August–October 1903 (; ; ), was an organized revolt against the Ottoman Empire, which was prepared and carried out by the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization, with the support of the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee, which included mostly Bulgarian military personnel. The name of the uprising refers to "Ilinden", a name for Elijah's day, and to "Preobrazhenie" which means Feast of the Transfiguration. Some historians describe the rebellion in the Serres revolutionary district as a separate uprising, calling it the Krastovden Uprising (Holy Cross Day Uprising), because on September 14 the revolutionaries there also rebelled. The revolt lasted from the beginning of August to the end of October and covered a vast territory from the western Black Sea coast in the east to the shores of Lake Ohrid in the west.
The rebellion in the region of Macedonia affected most of the central and southwestern parts of the Monastir Vilayet, supported by Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionaries, and to some extent of the Aromanian population of the region; Provisional government was established in the town of Kruševo, where the insurgents proclaimed the "Kruševo Republic", which was overrun after just ten days, on August 12. On August 19, a closely related uprising organized by Thracian Bulgarian revolutionaries in the Adrianople Vilayet led to the liberation of a large area in the Strandzha Mountains, and the creation of a provisional government in Vassiliko, the "Strandzha Republic". This lasted about twenty days before being put down by the Turks. The insurrection also affected the vilayets of Kosovo and Salonika.
By the time the rebellion had started, many of its most promising potential leaders, including Ivan Garvanov and Gotse Delchev, had already been arrested or killed by the Ottomans. The rebellion was supported by armed detachments which had infiltrated its area from the territory of the Principality of Bulgaria. When the rising began there were attempts to force the Bulgarian government to send the army against the Ottomans. The rebels appealed to Sofia for help too, but the government was pressured by the Great Powers to refrain from military intervention. The revolutionaries managed to maintain a guerrilla campaign against the Turks for the next few months, but the rising was crushed. This was followed by a mass wave of refugees from the areas of Macedonia and Southern Thrace, mostly to Bulgaria, but also to the US and Canada. Its greater effect was that it persuaded the European powers to attempt to convince the Ottoman sultan that he must take a more conciliatory attitude toward his Christian subjects in Europe. Through bilateral agreement, signed in 1904, Bulgaria committed not to support the revolutionary movement, while the Ottomans undertook to implement the Mürzsteg Reforms, however neither happened. 
The uprising is celebrated today in both Bulgaria and North Macedonia as the peak of their nations’ struggle against the Ottoman rule and thus it is still a divisive issue. While in Bulgaria it is considered as a general rebellion prepared by the joint revolutionary organization of the Bulgarians in the Ottoman Empire, with a common goal autonomy for Macedonia and Adrianople regions, in North Macedonia it is assumed that there were in fact two separate uprisings. Despite being organized by a single body, they were carried out by two different peoples with diverse goals, and practically the "Macedonians" were striving for their independence. Although the ideas of a separate Macedonian nation were supported then only by a handful of intellectuals abroad, and to the eve of the 20th century the membership of the IMARO was allowed only for Bulgarians, the post-WWII Macedonian rendition of history has reappraised the Ilinden uprising as an allegedly anti-Bulgarian revolt, led by ethnic Macedonians. The leader of the IMARO and architect of the uprising Ivan Garvanov, is regarded there a Greater Bulgarian agent. Bulgarian military personnels' significant participation is represented there as an alien element, while the fact the Uprising's leaders were Bulgarian schoolmasters, is neglected. Recent calls for common celebrations, especially from the Bulgarian side, did little to change this state of affairs.
Prelude.
At the turn of the 20th century, the Ottoman Empire was crumbling, and the lands they had held in Eastern Europe for over 500 years were passing to new rulers. Macedonia and Thrace were regions of indefinite boundaries, adjacent to the recently independent Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian states, but themselves still under the control of the Ottoman Turks. Each of the neighbouring states based claims to Macedonia and Thrace on various historical and demographic grounds. The population, however, was highly mixed, and the competing historical claims were based on various empires in the distant past.
The competition for control took place largely via of propaganda campaigns, aimed at winning over the local population, and conducted largely through churches and schools. Various groups of mercenaries were also supported by the local population and the three competing governments.
The most effective group was the Internal Macedonian-Adrianopolitan Revolutionary Organization (IMARO), founded in Thessaloniki in 1893. The group had a number of name changes prior to and subsequent to the uprising. It was predominantly Bulgarian and supported an idea for autonomy for Macedonia and Adrianople regions within the Ottoman state with a motto of "Macedonia for the Macedonians". It rapidly began to be infiltrated by members of Macedonian Supreme Committee, a group formed in 1894 in Sofia, Bulgaria. This group was called the "Supremists", and advocated annexation of the region by Bulgaria.
Its inspiration certainly belonged to the nineteenth-century Balkan practice whereby the powers maintained the fiction of Ottoman control over effectively independent states under the guise of autonomous status within the Ottoman state; (Serbia, 1829–1878; Romania, 1829–1878; Bulgaria, 1878–1908). "Autonomy, in other words, was as good as independence." Moreover, from the Macedonian perspective, the goal of independence by autonomy had another advantage. More important, IMARO was aware that neither Serbia nor Greece could expect to obtain the whole of Macedonia and, unlike Bulgaria, they both looked forward to and urged partition. Autonomy, then, was the best prophylactic against partition, that would preserve the Bulgarian character of Christian Macedonian Slav population despite the separation from Bulgaria proper. The idea of Macedonian autonomy was strictly political and did not imply a secession from Bulgarian ethnicity.
The two groups had different strategies. IMARO as originally conceived sought to prepare a carefully planned uprising in the future, but the Supremacists preferred immediate raids and guerilla operations to foster disorder and a precipitate interventions. On the other hand, a smaller group of conservatives in Salonica organized a Bulgarian Secret Revolutionary Brotherhood ("Balgarsko Tayno Revolyutsionno Bratstvo"). The latter was incorporated in IMARO by 1902 but its members as Ivan Garvanov, were to exert a significant influence on the organization. They were to push for the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising and later became the core of IMRO right-wing faction. One of the founding leaders of IMARO, Gotse Delchev, was a strong advocate for proceeding slowly, but the Supremacists pressed for a major uprising to take place in the summer of 1903. Delchev himself was killed by the Turks in May 1903.
Meanwhile, in late April 1903, a group of young anarchists from the "Gemidzhii Circle" – graduates from the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki launched a campaign of terror bombing, the so-called "Thessaloniki bombings of 1903". Their aim was to attract the attention of the Great Powers to Ottoman oppression in Macedonia and Eastern Thrace. As a response to the attacks, the Turkish Army and "bashibozouks" (irregulars) massacred many innocent Bulgarians in Thessaloniki, and later in Bitola.
By these circumstances the Supremacists' plan went ahead. Under a leadership from Ivan Garvanov IMARO made a decision about military revolt. Garvanov, himself, did not participate in the uprising, because of his arrest and exile in Rhodes. The day chosen for the uprising was August 2 (July 20 in the old Julian calendar), the feast day of St. Elias (Elijah). This holy day was known as "Ilinden". On 11 July, a congress at "Petrova Niva" near Malko Tarnovo set the date of 23 July for the uprising, then deferred it a bit more to 2 August. The Thrace region, around the Adrianople Vilayet was not ready, and negotiated for a later uprising in that region.
During the discussions, Racho Petrov's Bulgarian government supported IMARO's position that the rebellion was entirely internal. As well as Petrov's personal warning to Gotse Delchev in January 1903 to delay or even cancel the rebellion, the government sent out a circular note to its diplomatic representatives in Thessaloniki, Bitola and Edirne, advising the population not to succumb to pro-rebellion propaganda, as "Bulgaria was not ready to support it".
Old Russian Berdan and Krnka rifles as well as Mannlichers were supplied from Bulgaria to Skopje following the demand for higher rates of fire by Bulgarian army officer Boris Sarafov. In his memoir, Sarafov states that the main source of funds for the purchase of the weapons from the Bulgarian army came from the kidnapping of Miss Stone as well as from contacts in Europe.
Ilinden Uprising.
An account of the dates and details of the uprising were recorded by the anarchist author Georgi Khadzhiev which was translated by Will Firth. On 28 July, the message was sent out to the revolutionary movements, though the secret was kept until the last moment. The uprising began on the night of August 2, and involved large regions in and around Bitola, around the south-west of what is now North Macedonia and some of the north of Greece. That night and early the next morning, the town of Kruševo was attacked and captured by 800 rebels. Concurrently, after three days of fighting followed by a siege starting on August 5, the town of Smilevo was captured by the rebels. The town of Kleisoura, near Kastoria, was taken by insurgents about August 5. On August 14, under the leadership of Nikola Pushkarov, some bands near Skopje attacked and derailed a military train. In Razlog the population joined in the uprising. This was further east, in Pirin Macedonia in present-day Bulgaria.
On August 4, under leadership of Nikola Karev, a local administration called "Kruševo republic" had been set up. That same day and the next, Turkish troops made unsuccessful attempts to retake Kruševo. On August 12, following the Battle of Sliva, a force of 3,500 Ottoman soldiers recaptured and burned Kruševo. It had been held by the insurgents for just ten days. Kleisoura was finally recaptured by the Ottomans on August 27.
Other regions involved included Ohrid, Florina, and Kičevo. In the Thessaloniki region, operations were much more limited and without much local involvement, due in part to disagreements between the factions of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO). There was also no uprising in the Prilep area, immediately to the east of Bitola.
The reason why the uprising was strategically chosen in the Bitola vilayet, and the broader southwestern region of Macedonia, was due to the fact that it was located the farthest from Bulgaria, attempting to showcase to the Great Powers that the uprising was purely of a Macedonian character and phenomenon. Per one of the founders of IMARO – Petar Poparsov the idea to keep distance from Bulgaria, was because any suspicion of its interference could harm both sides: Bulgaria and the organisation. In fact the uprising soon spread to the adjacent vilayets of Kosovo, Thessaloniki and Adrianople (in Thrace).
Krastovden Uprising.
In areas encompassing the uprising of 1903, Albanian villagers were in a situation of being either under threat from IMRO četas or recruited by Ottoman authorities to end the uprising.
Preobrazhenie Uprising.
According to Khadzhiev, the main goal of the uprising in Thrace was to give support to the uprisings further west, by engaging Turkish troops and preventing them from moving into Macedonia. Many of the operations were diversionary, though several villages were taken, and a region in Strandzha was held for around twenty days. This is sometimes called the Strandzha Republic or Strandzha Commune, but according to Khadzhiev "there was never a question of state power in the Thrace region."
Rhodope Mountains Uprising.
In the Rhodope Mountains, Western Thrace, the uprising expressed only in some cheta's diversions in the regions of Smolyan and Dedeagach.
Aftermath.
The reaction of the Ottoman Turks to the uprisings was one of overwhelming force. The only hope for the insurgents was outside intervention, and that was never politically feasible. Indeed, although Bulgarian interests were favoured by