Yane Sandanski

Yane Sandanski (Bulgarian: Яне Сандански, Macedonian: Јане Сандански; Originally spelled in older Bulgarian orthography as Яне Ивановъ Сандански (Yane Ivanov Sandanski); 18 May 1872 – 22 April 1915) was a Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary. He is recognized as a national hero in both Bulgaria and North Macedonia.

In his youth Sandanski was interested in Bulgarian politics and had a career as head of the local prison in Dupnitsa. Then he was involved in the anti-Ottoman struggle, joining initially the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee (SMAC), but later switched to the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organisation (IMARO). Sandanski became one of the leaders of the IMARO in the Serres revolutionary district and head of the left wing of the organisation. He 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. During the Second Constitutional Era he became an Ottoman politician and entrepreneur, collaborating with the Young Turks and founded the Bulgarian People's Federative Party. Sandanski took up arms on the side of Bulgaria during the Balkan Wars (1912–13). Finally he was involved in Bulgarian public life again, but was eventually killed by the rivalling IMARO right-wing faction activists.

Sandanski's legacy remains disputed among Bulgarian and Macedonian historiography today. Macedonian historians refer to him in an attempt to demonstrate the existence of Macedonian nationalism or at least proto-nationalism within a part of the local revolutionary movement at his time. Despite the allegedly "anti-Bulgarian" autonomism and federalism of Sandanski, it is unlikely he had developed Macedonian national identity in a narrow sensе, or he regarded the Bulgarian Exarchists in Ottoman Macedonia as a separate nation from Bulgarians. Contrary to the assertions of Skopje, his "separatism" represented a supranational project, not national. More, the compatriots, who convinced Sandanski to accept such leftist ideas, were Bulgarian socialists, most of whom were non-Macedonian in origin. The designation Macedonian then was an umbrella term covering different nationalities in the area and when applied to the Slavic speakers in Ottoman Macedonia, it denoted mainly the then Bulgarian ethnic community there. However, contrary to Bulgarian assertions, his ideas of a separate Macedonian political entity, have stimulated the subsequent development of Macedonian nationalism.

As initial member of the SMAC, which served directly the Bulgarian governmental interests, and then of the left wing of the IMRO, which advocated the creation of a Balkan Federation, Yane Sandanski remains one of the most controversial Bulgarian revolutionaries. While the Bulgarian communist authorities mostly liked him for his leftist sympathies, after the fall of communism he is described by some nationalist historians as a betrayer of the Bulgarian national interests in Macedonia. Sandanski is portrayed by them as an Ottomanist, and collaborationist of the Young Turks, seen as Bulgarian enemies, and as the man who started the fratricidal war into the IMRO. He has been accused also of being transformed himself from a revolutionary into a businessperson whose political motivation became only the money earning. On the contrary, in North Macedonia, the positive connotation of him, created in the times of Communist Yugoslavia is still alive. Since then the Macedonian historiography has emphasized the particularity of the IMRO's left wing, while in fact Yugoslav communism and Macedonian nationalism are closely related. Thus, he is portrayed by the Macedonian historians as a freedom fighter against the “Greater Bulgarian chauvinism” and the “Turkish yoke”.