Petar Poparsov

Petar Poparsov (1868, Bogomila, present day Republic of Macedonia - 1941, Sofia, Bulgaria) was a revolutionary, one of the founders of "The Committee for Obtaining the Political Rights Given to Macedonia by the Congress of Berlin" from which, as Petar Poparsov says in his writings, later developed the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO)] ref|n1 known prior to 1902 as Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees (BMARC) . His last name is sometimes rendered 'Poparsov' or 'Pop Arsov'. He is considered ethnic Macedonian in the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgarian in Bulgaria.

Early life

He was born in 1868 in the village Bogomila, Veles, in a priest family. He was one of the leaders of the student protest in Bulgarian Exarchate school in 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 his resistance to Serbianisation, he was once more evicted in 1890.

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). 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

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". From 1896-7 he works in Shtip as a Bulgarian teacher and president of regional IMARO section. In 1897 he was arrested by Ottoman authorities on charges of inciting rebellion, and sentenced to 101 years in prison. Fortunately he was pardoned in August 1902. After his release he encountered 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. Allegedly because of his ideas, he was subsequently arrested in Bulgaria on two occasions. During the First Balkan War he and Dimitrija Čupovski organized an all-Macedonian congress that authorized them to represent the Macedonian Question in the Peace Conference. His ideal of United Macedonia was buried by the Treaty of Bucharest, 1913. In 1920 he fully withdrew from politics and worked as teacher of Bulgarian language in Kostenets. He died after brief illness in Sofia in 1941.

Books

* [http://macedonian.atspace.com/knigi/ppa_stam.htm Стамболовщината въ Македония и нейнитѣ прѣдставители] - Петъръ Попъ Арсовъ

Notes

# IMRO is the most commonly used name for the organization in which Petar Poparsov participated, although it is certain that in some his active days, the organization had a different name. What that name was is a matter of considerable dispute between historians from Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia. According to Bulgarian historians the name of the organization from 1896 to 1902 was Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees (BMARC), and it was meant only for Bulgarians, while according to ethic Macedonian historians the name of the organization was Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (SMARO) from 1896 to 1905, and it was meant for all ethnic Macedonians. See Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization for more details.
# Fikret Adanir – Die Makedonische Frage, Wiessbaden 1979
# Константин Пандев (“Национално-освободителното движение в Македония и Одринско” на София 1979, с. 129-130)