Thessaloniki bombings of 1903
- Thessaloniki bombings of 1903
In late April 1903, a group of young anarchists from the "Gemidzhii Circle" - graduates from the Bulgarian secondary school in Thessaloniki launched a campaign of terror bombing. Their aim was to attract the attention of the Great Powers to Ottoman oppression in Macedonia and Eastern Thrace. A member of the group, Pavel Shatev, used dynamite to blow up the French ship “Guadalquivir” which was leaving the Thessaloniki harbour. The bomber left the ship together with the other passengers, but was caught later by the Turkish police at the Skopie train station. The same night, other group bombers: Dimitar Mechev, Iliya Trachkov, and Milan Arsov, struck the railway between Thessaloniki and Istanbul, causing damage to the locomotive and some of the cars of a passing train without wounding any passengers.
The commencing signal for the large raid in Thessaloniki was given by Kostadin Kirkov who used explosives to shut off the electricity and water supply systems of the city. Jordan Popjordanov (Orceto) blew up the building of an Ottoman Bank office, under which the "gemidzhii" had previously dug a tunnel. Milan Arsov threw bombs in the "Alhabra" Café. The same night, Kostadin Kirkov, Iliya Bogdanov and Vladimir Pingov detonated bombs in different parts of the city. Dimitar Mechev and Iliya Truchkov failed to blast the reservoir of a gas-producing plant. They ware later killed in their quarters during a shoot-out with army and gendarmerie forces, against which Mechev and Trachkov used more than 60 bombs. Jordan Popjordanov was killed on April 17. On April 18, Kostadin Kirkov was also killed while trying to blow up a postal office. Right before being caught, Cvetko Traikov, whose mission was to kill the local governor, killed himself by setting off a bomb and then sitting on it.
As a response to the attacks, the Turkish Army and "bashibozouks" (irregulars) massacred many innocent Macedonians in Thessaloniki, and later on in Bitola. Pavel Shatev, Marko Boshnakov, Georgi Bogdanov and Milan Arsov ware arrested and sentenced by a court martial to a penal colony in the Fezan District (today’s Libya). Members of the Central Committee of IMORO, including Ivan Garvanov, D. Mirchev, and J. Kondov, along with many other Macedonians from Thessaloniki and other cities ware incarcerated.
External links
* The Salonica Dynamiters. [http://www.kroraina.com/knigi/bugarash/sa/index.html]
* В МАКЕДОНИЯ ПОД РОБСТВО, Солунското съзаклятие (1903 г.), подготовка и изпълнение. Павел Шатев. (Трето издание, Изд. на Отеч. фронт, София, 1983 г.) [http://www.kroraina.com/knigi/ps/index.html]
ee also
*Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization
*History of Bulgaria
*History of the Republic of Macedonia
*History of Turkey
*Macedonia (region)
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