34 Facts About Dame Gruev

Dame Gruev was one of the six founders of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization.

Dame Gruev is seen as a national hero in Bulgaria and North Macedonia but his ethnicity is disputed between both countries.

Dame Gruev was born in 1871 in the village of Smilevo, Monastir vilayet, Ottoman Empire.

Dame Gruev received his elementary education in Smilevo and continued his education in the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki.

Dame Gruev was part of a group excluded from the school following a student revolt.

Dame Gruev later continued his education in the Grandes ecoles in Belgrade.

Dame Gruev was enrolled in Sofia University and, later, in the Young Macedonian Literary Society.

Dame Gruev found the circle "Druzhba", whose aim was to implement "Article 23" of the Treaty of Berlin on the autonomy of Macedonia.

In 1891, Dame Gruev was expelled from the university as he was suspected in the assassination of the Minister Hristo Belchev, but subsequently, this allegation turned out to be groundless.

Later, Dame Gruev established himself in Thessaloniki and here he co-founded the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization.

Dame Gruev visited the cities of Resen, Ohrid, and Struga as well, and found the local population to be accepting his organization's revolutionary ideas very well.

Dame Gruev introduced Delchev to the plan already outlined by the Central Committee of Thessaloniki.

Dame Gruev had become the soul and body of the Central revolutionary committee.

Dame Gruev's tirelessly travelled throughout Macedonia and the Vilayet of Adrianople and systematically established and organized committees in villages and cities.

In 1897, Dame Gruev was one of the founders of the Society against Serbs.

In 1898, Dame Gruev had a meeting with the Bulgarian Prime minister Konstantin Stoilov in which a potential cooperation with SMARO was discussed, after the meeting Dame Gruev felt disappointed.

At Stoilov's insistence that the forced collection of money from the population be stopped, Dame Gruev requested that the Bulgarian government allocate additional funds for weapons, but it was refused.

Later in a meeting with the Bulgarian diplomat Atanas Shopov, Dame Gruev suggested that the government did not keep her words and was not honest towards the Organization, and that we cannot conform to their policies and wishes, but will work independently and fight it, just as we fight all our opponents.

Dame Gruev relocated to the Bitola revolutionary district in 1898, in Bitola with the cooperation of Petar Poparsov, Vasil Paskov and others, he began to issue a revolutionary paper.

Dame Gruev organized a system in which money was collected from Sunday schools through a special "revolutionary tax", and a quantity of war materials was purchased.

Dame Gruev was again appointed to the teaching staff now in the city of Bitola, and as such, he assumed the management of the revolutionary movement in the Vilayet of Monastir, while the active persons at the Committee in Thessaloniki were Hristo Tatarchev, Pere Toshev, and Hristo Matov.

Dame Gruev, being suspected as a major factor in fostering this movement, was arrested on 6 August 1900.

Dame Gruev kept up a steady stream of encrypted correspondence with Thessaloniki, Bitola, and Sofia.

Dame Gruev hastened to Thessaloniki and there he found that the Central Committee, which was in charge of the IMARO, had already resolved to declare a general insurrection which was to take place during 1903.

Dame Gruev left Thessaloniki and went to Smilevo where the insurrectionary Congress was to be held.

Dame Gruev was elected as chairman of this Congress, and the latter decided that the day of the declaration of the insurrection was to be 2 August 1903.

Dame Gruev lived to see the retreat of the Turkish troops from his native village of Smilevo.

Dame Gruev was engaged, during the course of the insurrection, in numerous skirmishes with the Ottoman Army.

Dame Gruev put himself on the task of touring various revolutionary districts, disarming the insurgents, and storing up the war materials for future use.

In 1904, Dame Gruev chaired the Prilep Congress of the Bitola Revolutionary District of IMRO.

In 1905 Dame Gruev headed the first General Congress of the organization after the uprising, the so-called Rila Congress.

Indeed, Dame Gruev was the only one who appeared to be capable of mastering Yane Sandanski's ambition for leadership.

Dame Gruev is considered a national hero in Bulgaria and North Macedonia.

Dame Gruev's name is part of the Macedonian national anthem "Today over Macedonia".