Maslina Grancharova

Maslina Ivanova Grancharova (Bulgarian: Маслина Иванова Грънчарова) (1874–1958), sometimes known as Kastoria's Rayna Knyaginya, was a teacher and revolutionary from the village of Zagorichane, Ottoman Empire, (today Vasiliada in the Kastoria region of Greece). In 1895, she joined the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) and participated in the Ilinden Uprising of 1903. She sewed the flag that represented the liberation of Dendrohori from the Ottomans and was the flag-bearer for her unit in the Ilinden Uprising.

Biography

Maslina Grancharova was born in 1874 in the small village of Vassiliada (called Zagorichane in Bulgarian) in Kastoria, when the Ottomans still controlled the region. Her father's name was Ivan, and she had a brother named Vangel. She graduated from a Bulgarian high school for girls in Thessaloniki and began teaching in Didymoteicho. After joining IMRO in 1895, she moved to Amyntaio and Sklithro and performed courier duties for the organization in addition to teaching. She and a fellow teacher, Elena Minasova, bore the flag of the Dendrohori liberation movement. In 1901, she briefly returned to her hometown of Vassiliada, where she met famous IMRO leader Gotse Delchev.

Grancharova was arrested by Turkish authorities and imprisoned in Korçë, Albania along with fellow revolutionaries Manol Rozov, Lazar Poptrajkov, and Pavel Christov. After her release, she became secretary of the Central Committee and member of the Kastoria Regional Committee of IMRO. In these high-seated positions, she assisted in the planning of the Ilinden Uprising.

On August 2, 1903, at the start of the uprising, Grancharova rode on horseback, carrying the flag while staying next to her leader, Manol Rizov. She was compared to Rayna Knyaginya carrying the flag alongside Georgi Benkovski, and was thereafter called "Kastoria's Rayna Knyaginya" (Костурската Райна княгиня).^[1]

Following the Ilinden Uprising, Grancharova was arrested a second time in Nymfaio, but was given amnesty and released. She returned to Vassiliada, where she raised her orphaned niece, Kitcha, who had been born to her brother Vangel on October 20, 1903. In 1924, Kitcha emigrated to the United States and married Sotir Tancheff, a Greek World War I veteran who had immigrated to the U.S. in 1917 by joining the Army.

After the First Balkan War, Maslina Grancharova emigrated to Krivodol, where she found asylum from anti-Bulgarian prejudice. She stayed there until she died in 1958. She was buried as a heroine, with a picture of her in full rebel garb placed on her headstone.^[2][3]

Sources

1. ^ "МАСЛИНА ГРЪНЧАРОВА - КОСТУРСКАТА РАЙНА КНЯГИНЯ." ~ ЗАБРАВЕНИ ГЕРОИ ~. Web. 10 May 2011. <http://krasimirbogdanov.blogspot.com/2010/01/blog-post_29.html>.
2. ^ Macedonian Encyclopedia, Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Skopje, 2009, p. 401.
3. ^ Grancharova, Kitcha Vangelova, and Genevieve Tancheff. Personal interview.

Persondata
Name	Maslina Ivanova Grancharova
Alternative names	Маслина Иванова Грънчарова
Short description	teacher, revolutionary
Date of birth	1874
Place of birth	Zagorichane, Kastoria
Date of death	1958
Place of death	Krivodol, Bulgaria