Marko Lerinski

Voivode

Marko Lerinski
Marko Lerinski c. 1902
Native name
Марко Лерински
Born
Georgi Ivanov Gyurov
Георги Иванов Гюров

(1862-06-20)20 June 1862
Died13 June 1902(1902-06-13) (aged 39)
Buried
Sorovich (now Amyntaio, Greece)
Allegiance Principality of Bulgaria
IMRO
Branch Bulgarian Army
Service years1883-1900
Conflicts

Georgi Ivanov Gyurov (Bulgarian: Георги Иванов Гюров; 20 June 1862 – 13 June 1902), known under the alias Marko Lerinski (Bulgarian: Марко Лерински), was a Bulgarian military officer and revolutionary. He was one of Internal Macedonian–Adrianople Revolutionary Organization's most effective leaders in the Lerin (Florina) district.[1][2]

Life

Georgi Ivanov Gyurov was born on 20 June 1862 in Kotel in Ottoman Rumelia (Northern Thrace), today a town in central eastern Bulgaria.[3][4] In 1883, he joined the Principality of Bulgaria's armed forces. He took part in the Serbo-Bulgarian War of 1885. For his bravery, he was awarded a medal and promoted. In 1895, he participated in Supreme Macedonian–Adrianople Committee, anti-Ottoman action as part of Stoyo Kostov's detachment, which involved an attack on Dospat. After the action, he returned to the army.[3]

He served as a non-commissioned officer until he left the army in 1900.[4] In 1901, he got in contact with Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionaries Gotse Delchev and Gyorche Petrov, who recruited him in IMARO. They dispatched him as a regional leader (voivode) for the Lerin region (today Florina, Greece), where he adopted the alias Marko Lerinski.[3][5] Lerinski created a training center in the Lerin district in the 1900s,[6] where he trained aspiring voivodes.[7] Thanks to Lerinski's military training and his organizational abilities, his detachment became a school for voivodes and members of IMARO.[3][4][8] According to fellow IMARO member and writer Hristo Silyanov, Marko Lerinski turned Lerin into "... a region of model in every respect. Enthustiastic activists, strict organization, a disciplined and, in the full sense of the words, propagandist and organizational detachment. That was all the work of Marko from Kotel."[9]

Lerinski was the first person to suggest a common uprising in both Macedonia and the Adrianople Vilayet,[3][10] an idea that would be put into practice with the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising of 1903. Lerinski died in a clash with Ottoman forces in Patele (Agios Panteleimonas, Florina, Greece) on 13 June 1902.[3] He was buried in Sorovich.[11]

References

  1. ^ Duncan Perry (1988). The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian Liberation Movements, 1893-1903. Duke University Press. p. 158. ISBN 9780822308133.
  2. ^ André Gerolymatos (2001). The Balkan Wars: Myth, Reality, and the Eternal Conflict. Stoddart. p. 192. ISBN 9780773732902.
  3. ^ a b c d e f "Марко Лерински (1862 - 1902)". Macedonian Scientific Institute (in Bulgarian). 13 June 2019.
  4. ^ a b c Vemund Aarbakke. Ethnic Rivalry and the Quest for Macedonia 1870–1913. pp. 125–126, 134.
  5. ^ Keith Brown (2013). Loyal Unto Death: Trust and Terror in Revolutionary Macedonia. Indiana University Press. p. 228. ISBN 9780253008473.
  6. ^ Nadine Lange-Akhund (1998). The Macedonian Question, 1893-1908, from Western Sources. East European Monographs. p. 95. ISBN 9780880333832.
  7. ^ Jane K. Cowan, ed. (2000). Macedonia: The Politics of Identity and Difference. Pluto Press. p. 72. ISBN 9780745315898.
  8. ^ Силянов, Христо (1993). Освободителните борби на Македония ("Macedonia's struggles for liberation") (in Bulgarian). Vol. I. p. 133.
  9. ^ Силянов, Христо (1993). Освободителните борби на Македония ("Macedonia's struggles for liberation") (in Bulgarian). Vol. I. p. 99.
  10. ^ Lozanchev, Atastas (8 April 2016). "Анастас Лозанчев - Защо бях за въстание" [Anastas Lozanchev - Why I was supportive of an uprising]. Macedonian Scientific Institute (in Bulgarian).
  11. ^ Dimitar Dimeski (1993). Aferite vo Bitolskiot vilaet, 1895-1903 (in Macedonian). Matica makedonska. p. 112.

Sources

  • Енциклопедия "България" (in Bulgarian). Vol. том 4. София: Издателство на Българската академия на науките. 1984.