36 Facts About Yane Sandanski

Yane Sandanski supported the idea of a Balkan Federation, and Macedonia as an autonomous state within its framework, as an ultimate solution of the national problems in the area.

Yane Sandanski took up arms on the side of Bulgaria during the Balkan Wars.

Yane Sandanski is recognised as a national hero in both Bulgaria and North Macedonia, but his identity is disputed between both countries.

Yane Sandanski was born on 18 May 1872 in the village of Vlahi near Kresna, then in the Ottoman Empire, now in Bulgaria.

Yane Sandanski was the third and last child of Ivan and Milka, after Todor and Sofia.

In 1879, after the suppression of the uprising, his family moved to Dupnitsa, in the recently established Principality of Bulgaria, where Yane Sandanski received his elementary education.

Yane Sandanski had to drop out of school after completing two years of post-elementary education due to poverty and became the apprentice of a shoemaker.

Yane Sandanski joined initially the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee in 1895 during the Committee's cheta action into the Pomaks-inhabited regions of the Western Rhodopes.

In one of the battles Yane Sandanski was wounded and his detachment returned him to Bulgaria for treatment.

Yane Sandanski operated as an activist of Radoslavov's wing of the Liberal Party and shortly after it came to power in February 1899, he was appointed head of the Dupnitsa prison.

Yane Sandanski switched to the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation in 1901.

Yane Sandanski settled on kidnapping an American Protestant missionary for ransom.

Yane Sandanski was kidnapped along with her Bulgarian companion Katerina Tsilka.

In 1902, Yane Sandanski persuaded the Vlachs in the sanjak of Serres from Melnik, mostly shepherds, to join his Serres committee, in exchange for his protection against soldiers and detachments.

Per Bulgarian historian and former IMARO member Hristo Silyanov, Yane Sandanski's faction sentenced the right-wing leader Boris Sarafov to death in 1904.

Yane Sandanski created observation posts in his district order to watch for Turkish detachments, and the peasants were forced to warn or be killed.

Mihail Daev, who was a member of his committee, sent a letter to the right-wing faction in September 1907, where he asserted that as long as Yane Sandanski was alive, there was no question of uniting the organisation again.

Yane Sandanski called his compatriots to discard the "propaganda" of official Bulgaria in order to live together in a peaceful way with the Turkish people.

Chernopeev invited him to join him, however Yane Sandanski ignored his invitation.

Yane Sandanski was accused of betraying the Bulgarians in Macedonia, since he did not launch an armed resistance against the Ottoman government.

Yane Sandanski rejected the attempt, resulting in tension between him and the CUP.

Yane Sandanski was at the service of the Bulgarian army during the Balkan Wars.

Yane Sandanski usually tried to prevent such massacres on the Muslims.

Yane Sandanski had a unit under his control which fought together with the Bulgarians, but under independent command.

Yane Sandanski gave an interview for the Italian newspaper "Il Secolo" in Tirana, where he said that he came to an agreement with the Albanians and that revolutionary activity would be renewed.

Yane Sandanski sought support among the opposition parties, which were on the side of the Entente, but they refused to participate in the conspiracy, and it failed.

Yane Sandanski supported the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, hoping that it would bring equality to all peoples in the Ottoman Empire and autonomy for Macedonia.

Yane Sandanski criticised the politics of both Serbia and Bulgaria and accused them of being more interested in the enlargement of their states than in the freedom of the people in Macedonia.

Yane Sandanski saw the solution of the Macedonian Question through the creation of a Balkan Federation, which would include Macedonia and Adrianople.

Yane Sandanski had never rejected the Bulgarian Exarchate as an institution, or denied that it had a role to play in the life of the Macedonian Bulgarians.

Per a member of his cheta Atanas Yanev, Sandanski was saddened by internecine struggles.

The identity of Yane Sandanski has been disputed between Bulgaria and North Macedonia.

Yane Sandanski supported an autonomous Macedonia because it would permit him to expand his role as a political leader.

Macedonian historian Ivan Katardziev argued that the political separatism of Yane Sandanski represented a form of early Macedonian nationalism, asserting that at that time it was only a political phenomenon, without ethnic character.

Yane Sandanski's name is mentioned in the national anthem of North Macedonia, Denes nad Makedonija.

Yane Sandanski's grave has been a place for commemoration and gatherings by Macedonian nationalists from Bulgaria and North Macedonia.