Editing Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising (section)

{{Short description|Anti-Ottoman revolt in the Balkans (1903)}}
{{Use American English|date=May 2025}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2025}}
{{Infobox military conflict
| conflict          = Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising
| width             = 
| partof            = 
| image             = Ilinden-Preobrazhenie-Krastovden-Rhodope Uprising.PNG
| image_size        = 324px
| caption           = Map of the uprising in the regions of Macedonia and Thrace, with contemporary Ottoman frontiers and present-day borders
| date              = August 2, 1903 – October 1903
| place             = [[Ottoman Empire]]
*[[Manastir vilayet]]
*[[Salonica vilayet]]
*[[Kosovo vilayet]]
*[[Adrianople vilayet]]
| coordinates       = 
| map_type          = 
| map_relief        = 
| latitude          = 
| longitude         = 
| map_size          = 
| map_marksize      = 
| map_caption       = 
| map_label         = 
| territory         = 
| result            = Ottoman victory
| status            = 
| combatants_header = 
| combatant1        = {{flagicon image|Flag of the IMRO.svg}} [[Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization|IMARO]]<br>[[File:SMAC Seal2.JPG|25px]] [[Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee|SMAC]]<br>[[File:Flag of the Kruševo Republic.svg|25px]] [[Kruševo Republic]]<br>[[File:Strandzha Commune.svg|25px]] [[Strandzha Commune]]
| combatant2        = {{flag|Ottoman Empire}}
| combatant3        = 
| commander1        = {{Plainlist|
* [[Dame Gruev]]<ref name="DPerry">{{cite book|title=The Politics of Terror. The Macedonian Revolutionary Movements, 1893–1903|last=Perry|first=Duncan|publisher=Duke University Press|date=1988|place=Durham and London|isbn=0-8223-0813-4|page=136}}</ref>
* [[Boris Sarafov]]<ref name="DPerry"/>
* [[Nikola Karev]]<ref name="FAdanir">{{cite book|title=Die Makedonische Frage. Ihre Entstehung und Entwicklung bis 1908 |last=Adanir |first=Fikret |trans-title=The Macedonian Question. Its Genesis and Development Until 1908 |publisher=Franz Steiner Verlag |place=Wiesbaden |year=1979 |isbn=3-515-02914-1}}</ref>
* [[Georgi Sugarev]]<ref name="FAdanir"/>
* [[Yane Sandanski]]
* [[Mihail Gerdzhikov]]
* [[Lazar Madzharov]]
* [[Stamat Ikonomov]]
* [[Ivan Tsonchev]] (SMAC)
}}
| commander2        = * [[Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha]]<ref name="DPerry"/>
* Omer Ruchidi Pasha<ref name="DPerry"/>
| commander3        = 
| units1            = 
| units2            = 
| units3            = 
| strength1         = 26,408 (IMARO figures)<ref name="IMARO_memoir">{{cite book|title=[[:File:Makedonija-i-Odrinsko-1893-1903.pdf|Македония и Одринско 1893–1903. Мемоар на Вътрешната организация.]] |trans-title=Macedonia and Adrianople Region 1893–1903. A Memoir of the Internal Organization.| publisher=[[IMARO|Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization]] |language=bg |year=1904 |place=Sofia}}</ref>
| strength2         = 350,931 (IMARO figures)<ref name="IMARO_memoir"/>
| strength3         = 
| casualties1       = IMARO figures:<ref name="IMARO_memoir"/> {{Plainlist|
* 994 insurgents killed / wounded
* 4,694 civilians killed
* 3,122 girls and women raped
* 176 girls and women abducted
* 12,440 houses burned
* 70,835 people left homeless
}}
| casualties2       = 5,328 killed / wounded (IMARO figures)<ref name="IMARO_memoir"/>
| casualties3       = 
| notes             = 
| campaignbox       = {{Campaignbox Bulgarian–Ottoman wars}}{{Campaignbox Early IMRO Activity}}
}}
{{History of North Macedonia}}
{{History of Bulgaria}}

The '''Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising''' ({{langx|bg|Илинденско-Преображенско въстание|Ilindensko-Preobrazhensko vastanie}}), consisting of the '''Ilinden Uprising''' ({{langx|mk|Илинденско востание|Ilindensko vostanie}}; {{langx|el|Εξέγερση του Ίλιντεν|Exégersi tou Ílinden}}) and '''Preobrazhenie Uprising''',<ref>Crampton, Richard J. (2005). A Concise History of Bulgaria. Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|9781139448239}}. p. 128.</ref><ref>Ivo Banac (1984). [https://books.google.mk/books?id=KfqbujXqQBkC&pg=PA316''The National Question in Yugoslavia. Origins, History, Politics''], Cornell University Press, p. 316. {{ISBN|0801494931}}.</ref><ref name="Keith Brown">Keith Brown (2013). Loyal Unto Death Trust and Terror in Revolutionary Macedonia. Indiana University Press. pp. 15-18. {{ISBN|9780253008473}}.</ref> 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.<ref>Victor. Roudometof, The Macedonian Question From Conflict to Cooperation? in Constantine Panos Danopoulos, Dhirendra K. Vajpeyi, Amir Bar-Or as ed., Civil-military Relations, Nation Building, and National Identity: Comparative Perspectives, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, {{ISBN|0275979237}}, p. 216.</ref> The name of the uprising refers to ''Ilinden'', a name for [[Elijah#Prophet saint|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 (region)|Macedonia]] affected the [[Manastir vilayet]], supported by [[Macedonian Bulgarian]] revolutionaries, and to some extent by the [[Aromanians|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.<ref name="Khadzhiev1992">{{Cite book |last1=Khadzhiev |first1=Georgi |translator1-last=Firth |translator1-first=Will |chapter=The Transfiguration Uprising and the 'Strandzha Commune': The First Libertarian Commune in Bulgaria |title=Националното освобождение и безвластният федерализъм |trans-title=National Liberation and Libertarian Federalism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DDFOAQAAIAAJ |language=bg |pages=99–148 |date=1992 |publisher=Artizdat-5 |location=Sofia |chapter-url=http://www.savanne.ch/tusovka/en/will-firth/bulgaria.html#strandzha |oclc=27030696 }}</ref> 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 [[Tsarevo|Vassiliko]], the ''[[Strandzha Republic]]''. This lasted about twenty days before being put down by the Ottomans.<ref name=Khadzhiev1992/> 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.<ref>''Bulgaria's national activists who were devoted to the Macedonian cause became convinced that Macedonian society was reproducing , with a time lag of thirty to forty years, the entire Bulgarian evolution of [[Bulgarian National Revival|Vazrazhdane]]... They would go so far as to imitate the Bulgarian uprising of 1876 (the April uprising), which was disastrous, but which national discourse had transformed into the culmination of the revolutionary movement. They organized their own uprising in 1903 in Macedonia (the Ilinden Uprising), which was just as disastrous. The model was replicated so faithfully that in 1903 it included a revival of the absurd [[Cherry cannon|cannons made out of cherrywood]] that were used in 1876.'' For more see: Bernard Lory, The Ottoman Legacy in the Balkans. In: Entangled Histories of the Balkans - Volume Three. Brill, {{ISBN|9789004290365}}, pp. 380–381.</ref>

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 [[Mürzsteg Agreement|conciliatory attitude]] toward his [[Christianity|Christian]] subjects in Europe.<ref>Akhund, Nadine (2009). "Muslim Representation in the Three Ottoman vilayets of Macedonia: Administration and Military Power (1878–1908)". Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs. 29 (4): 443–454.</ref> Through bilateral agreement, signed in 1904, Bulgaria committed not to support the revolutionary movement, while the Ottomans undertook to implement the [[Mürzsteg Agreement|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 [[Bulgarian Millet|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.