Evidence of Bulgarian sentiments during the Ilinden rising is abundant; Bulgarian flags flew from housetops and the Bulgarian song Makedonija, stara Bulgaria (Macedonia, old Bulgaria) was sung (Adanir 1979: 184). Contemporary foreign observers treated the Bulgarian nature of the rising as self-evident. The organization responsible for die Ilinden rising, usually known to Anglophone scholars by the name Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, or IMRO (alternatively as "VMRO" from its Slavic initials), enjoyed strong ties with the government in Sofia and received arms and financial support from the Bulgarian government (Perry 1988: 40). According to Duncan Perry, the correspondence of the aforementioned Goce Delcev "often states clearly and simply, 'We are Bulgarians'" (Perry 1988: 23). Giorge Petrov, another IMRO leader, wrote in 1896 that "The Macedonian population consists of Bulgarians, Turks, Albanians, Wallachians, Jews and Gypsies" (Bozinov, Panayotov 1978, vol. 3: document 40). IMRO as an organization showed its Bulgarian sympathies by initially describing itself as "the Bulgaria-Macedonia-Edirne Revolutionary Organization" (see Perry 1988: 41).
[Klaus Roth, Ulf Brunnbauer - Region, Regional Identity and Regionalism in Southeastern Europe (Ethnologia Balkanica) - Lit Verlag (2007), σ. 135.]
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Despite the efforts of the post-1945 Macedonian historiography to represent Delchev as a Macedonian separatist rather than a Bulgarian nationalist, Delchev himself has stated in his correspondence: “...We are Bulgarians and all suffer from one common disease [e.g., the Ottoman rule]” (quoted in McDermott, 1978:192), and “Our task is not to shed the blood of Bulgarians, of those who belong to the same people that we serve” (quoted in McDermott, 1978:273).
[Victor Roudometof - Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict_ Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question - Greenwood Publishing Group (2002), σ. 79.]
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Misirkov saw both IMRO and the Ilinden rising as a catastrophe: its failure increased the danger of Macedonia's partition, threatening the integrity of Macedonia as a single region. He also saw IMRO as Bulgarian phenomena: "The only Macedonian Slavs who played a leading part in the uprising were those who called themselves Bulgarians." Misirkov lamented that "no local Macedonian patriotism" existed and would have to be created.
[Klaus Roth, Ulf Brunnbauer - Region, Regional Identity and Regionalism in Southeastern Europe (Ethnologia Balkanica) - Lit Verlag (2007), σ. 138.]
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