Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising

The Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising (Bulgarian: Илинденско-Преображенско въстание, romanized: Ilindensko-Preobrazhensko vastanie), consisting of the Ilinden Uprising (Macedonian: Илинденско востание, romanized: Ilindensko vostanie; Greek: Εξέγερση του Ίλιντεν, romanized: Exégersi tou Ílinden) and Preobrazhenie Uprising, 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. The revolt lasted from the beginning of August to the end of October.

The rebellion in the region of Macedonia affected the Manastir vilayet, supported by Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionaries, and to some extent by the Aromanian population of the region. A 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 Ottomans. The insurrection also affected the vilayets of Kosovo and Salonica. In practice, this uprising was designed as a belated replica of the Bulgarian April Uprising of 1876, which finished disastrously, but which the national narrative had transformed into the culmination of the anti-Ottoman struggle.

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. Towards the end of the uprising there was an attempt to convince the Bulgarian government to send the army against the Ottomans, but the government was pressured by the Great Powers to refrain from military intervention. The revolutionaries managed to maintain a guerrilla campaign against the Ottomans for almost three months, but the uprising was suppressed. This was followed by a mass wave of refugees from the regions of Macedonia and Thrace, mostly to Bulgaria, but also to the United States 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 in both Bulgaria and North Macedonia as the peak of their nations' struggle against the Ottoman rule and thus its legacy has been disputed between both countries. 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. Calls for common celebrations, especially from the Bulgarian side, did little to change this state of affairs.