Petar Poparsov

Petar Pop-Arsov[note 1][note 2] (Bulgarian: Петър Попарсов, Macedonian: Петар Поп Арсов;[note 3] 14 August 1868 – 1 January 1941) was a Bulgarian educator[1] and revolutionary from Ottoman Macedonia,[2][3][4] one of the founders of the Internal Macedonian Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (IMARO),[5] known in its early times as Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees (BMARC).[6] According to the post-WWII Macedonian historiography, he was an ethnic Macedonian.[7] According to the Bulgarian historiography he was a Bulgarian.[8]

Petar Pop-Arsov
Portrait of Poparsov
Born(1868-08-14)14 August 1868
Bogomila, Ottoman Empire
Died1 January 1941(1941-01-01) (aged 72)
Sofia, Kingdom of Bulgaria

Early life

He was born in 1868 in the village of Bogomila, near Veles. He was one of the leaders of the student protest in the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki in 1887/1888 where the main objective was to replace the East Bulgarian dialect with a Macedonian dialect in the lecturing. As a consequence, he was expelled along with 38 other students. He managed to enroll in the philology studies program at Belgrade University in 1888, but because of his resistance to Serbianisation, he was once more evicted in 1890.[9] In 1892 he graduated in Slavistics from Sofia University.

Young Macedonian Literary Society

In 1891 he is one of the founders of Young Macedonian Literary Society in Sofia and its magazine Loza (The Vine).[10] The purpose of the society was twofold: the official one was primarily scholarly and literary. One of the purposes of the magazine of Young Macedonian Literary Society was to defend the idea the dialects from Macedonia to be more represented in Bulgarian literature language. The articles where historical, cultural and ethnographic. The authors of this magazine clearly considered them as Macedonian Bulgarians, but the Bulgarian government suspected them of the lack of loyalty and some separatism and the magazine was promptly banned by the Bulgarian authorities after several issues.

IMARO
Statute of the Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees. It was based on the statute of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee.[11]

The best proof of the aims and tasks of the Young Macedonian Literary Society was provided during the following year when its members became either founders of or active participants in "The Committee for Obtaining the Political Rights Given to Macedonia by the Congress of Berlin" from which, as Petar Poparsov says, there later developed IMARO. These were the Macedonian intellectuals who were "the witnesses to the hellish condition of Macedonia and took account of the geographical, ethnographic, economic and other characteristics of the country". In 1894 Petar Poparsov was asked by the founders to prepare a draft for the first statute of the IMARO, based on the Statute of Vasil Levski's Internal Revolutionary Organization, which was available to them in Zahari Stoyanov's Notes on the Bulgarian Uprisings.[12] Some Macedonian and Bulgarian researchers assume, that in this first statute the organization was called Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees, and Poparsov was its author.[13][14][15]

From 1896 to 1897 he worked in Štip as a Bulgarian teacher and president of the regional IMARO section. In 1897 he was arrested by Ottoman authorities on charges of inciting rebellion, and sentenced to 101 years in prison. He was pardoned in August 1902. After his release he encountered a changed political climate in Macedonia. He remained passive during the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising of 1903. However, after the failure of the uprising, he was admitted to the Central Committee of IMARO. At the Rila Congress in November 1905, he was elected in the representative body of IMARO. He championed the idea of Macedonian autonomy. After the Young Turk revolution of 1908, he took an active part in the preparation and holding of the elections for the Ottoman Parliament with the list of the People's Federative Party (Bulgarian Section) but did not receive the necessary number of votes for a deputy.

During the First Balkan War he participated in an unsuccessful meeting attended by some local revolutionaries from the left wing of the IMARO in Veles. It was organized by Dimitrija Čupovski and its aim was to authorize representatives to participate in the London peace conference. They had to try to preserve the integrity of the region of Macedonia.[16]

In Bulgaria

After the Balkan Wars he moved to Bulgaria. Here he married Hrisanta Nasteva, a former teacher of Bulgarian Girls' High School of Thessaloniki. They settled in Kostenets in 1914, where he continuously taught from 1914 to 1929. He worked not only as a teacher but also as a director until his retirement. His brother Andrey Poparsov was Mayor of Bogomila during the Bulgarian rule in the area in the First World War, but was killed in October 1918 by the Serbian authorities. In 1920, he protested against the Serbianization of Macedonian Bulgarians implemented in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and described its early stages in Macedonia as one of the most powerful factors to the creation of the IMRO. He died after a brief illness in Sofia in 1941.

Books

Notes
  1. His last name is sometimes rendered 'Poparsov' or 'Pop Arsov'.
  2. in older Macedonian media his name is spelt as "Petre Pop Arsov"
  3. Originally spelled in older Bulgarian orthography: Петъръ попъ Арсовъ

References
  1. Poparsov was Bulgarian teacher between 1892-1897; 1903-1904; 1910 and 1914-1929. For more see: Воин Божинов, Българската просвета в Македония и Одринска Тракия 1878-1913 (in Bulgarian), Българска академия на науките, София, 1982, стр. 100.
  2. (...)The almost exclusive "national" basis of the Internal organization was namely the Exarchist population. The same holds true for the clear domination of the Exarchist social elite within its leadership and of the practical support given to it by the local institutions of the Exarchate. Bulgarian teachers in Macedonia constituted the backbone of the Internal organization while, according to their social profile, its leaders were quite often themselves former Exarchist teachers. (...) The lack of diverse "ethnic" motivations is confirmed by the fact that, in his brochure ("Stambolovism in Macedonia and its representatives" issued in 1894), Poparsov generally used the designations "Bulgaro-Macedonians" and "Macedonian Bulgarians" in order to name his "compatriots." For more see: Tchavdar Marinov We, the Macedonians. The Paths of Macedonian Supra-Nationalism (1878–1912) p. 107-137 in We, the People: Politics of National Peculiarity in Southeastern Europe with Mishkova Diana as ed., Central European University Press, 2009, ISBN 9639776289.
  3. The Macedonian question: Britain and the southern Balkans 1939-1949, Dimitris Livanios, Oxford University Press US, 2008, ISBN 0-19-923768-9, p. 18.
  4. Preparation for a revolution: the Young Turks, 1902-1908, M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, Oxford University Press US, 2001, ISBN 0-19-513463-X, pp. 246-247.
  5. ВМОРО през погледа на нейните основатели. Спомени на Дамян Груев, д-р Христо Татарчев, Иван Хаджиниколов, Антон Димитров, Петър Попарсов (in Bulgarian). Съст. Т. Петров, Ц. Билярски. София, 2002, с. 203-207.
  6. Dimitar Bechev, Historical Dictionary of North Macedonia, Historical Dictionaries of Europe, Edition 2, Rowman & Littlefield, 2019, ISBN 1538119625, p. 11.
  7. Ванчо Ѓорѓиев, Петар Поп Арсов: прилог кон проучувањето на македонското националноослободително движење (in Macedonian), Матица македонска, 1997, ISBN 9789989481031, p. 195.
  8. Николов, Иван (2002). Македония - подменената идентичност. Македония прес. p. 13. ISBN 9789548823449.
  9. Грага за историјата на македонскиот народ од Архивот на Србија. т. ІV, кн. ІІІ (1888-1889). Београд, 1987 и Т. V, кн. І (1890). Београд, 1988.
  10. The Earliest Stage of Language Planning: "The First Congress" Phenomenon, ed. Joshua A. Fishman, Walter de Gruyter, 2011, ISBN 9783110848984, p. 162.
  11. IMRO group modeled itself after the revolutionary organizations of Vasil Levski and other noted Bulgarian revolutionaries like Hristo Botev and Georgi Benkovski, each of whom was a leader during the earlier Bulgarian revolutionary movement. Duncan M. Perry, The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian Liberation Movements, 1893-1903, Duke University Press, 1988, ISBN 0822308134, pp. 39-40.
  12. Mercia MacDermott, Freedom or Death. The Life of Gotsé Delchev, Journeyman Press, London & West Nyack, 1978, p. 99.
  13. По примерот на уставот на Бугарскиот револуционерен централен комитет, тие го подготвиле првиот устав на Македонската револуционерна организација...Нејзиниот прв основен програмски документ, бил публикуван во 1894 година под името „Устав на Бугарските македонско-одрински револуционерни комитети", а Организацијата, дури без и да се нарече организација, скратено ја нарекле БМОРК. Под официјалното име на БМОРК таа постоела неполни две години по нејзиниот основачки конгрес. Ова на свој начин го посведочува и П. Поп Арсов. Тој се смета за автор на првиот Устав. Manol D. Pandevski, Makedonskoto osloboditelno delo vo XIX i XX vek, Tom 1, Misla, 1987, str. 87.
  14. На втората средба, една од важните точки на дневниот ред најверојатно била донесувањето на уставот...На учесниците им се нашла при рака револуционерната литература од времето на бугарските револуционерни борби...Изработката на проект-уставот му била доверена на П Поп Арсов. На следните средби, шестмината го прифатиле уставот и ова бил нејзиниот прв акт... Има еден отпечатан устав коjшто носи наслов „Устав на Бугарските македонско-одрински револуционерни комитети", и за коj се тврди дека е првиот устав на Внатрешната организациjа. Крсте Битовски, Бранко Панов, Македонија во деветнаесеттиот век до Балканските војни (1912-1913), Том 3; Том 5, Институт за национална историја (Скопје, Македонија), 2003, ISBN 9989624763, стр. 162-163.
  15. Lambi V. Danailov, Stilian Noĭkov, Natsionalno-osvoboditelnoto dvizhenia v Trakija 1878-1903, Tom 2, Trakiĭski nauchen institut, Izd. na otechestvenia front, 1971, str. 81-82.
  16. Ристовский, Блаже. Димитрий Чуповский и македонское национальное сознание, ОАО Издательство „Радуга“, Москва, 1999, с. 76.
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