Panko Brashnarov

Panko Brashnarov (1883, Veles, present day Republic of Macedonia - 1951, Goli Otok, present day Croatia) was a revolutionary, member of the left wing of the Macedonian-Adrianople revolutionary movement (IMARO). As with many other IMARO members of the time, historians from the Republic of Macedonia consider him an ethnic Macedonian, and historians in Bulgaria - a Bulgarian.

He was born in Veles where he graduated the Bulgarian Exarchate's school. In 1903 he took part in the Ilinden Uprising. After that Brashnarov learned in Skopie's pedagogical school and worked as Bulgarian teacher to the beginning of Balkan Wars. In 1919 he became a member of the Yugoslav Communist Party.In 1925 in Vienna Brashnarov was elected as one of the leaders of IMRO (United). Because of his political convictions he was sentenced to 7 years prison in Kingdom of Yugoslavia. After his liberation he remained politically passive.

In the beginning of the Bulgarian annexation of Vardar Banovina in 1941 he was one of the founders of the Bulgarian Action Committees. [http://makedonski-list.com/e107_files/public/_____.jpg] Until 1943 Brashnarov worked again as a Bulgarian teacher. After that he became politically active and joined the communist partizan's movement fighting against the Axis Powers. On the 2nd of August 1944 in the St. Prohor Pčinjski monastery at the Antifascist assembly of the national liberation of Macedonia with Panko Brashnarov as a first speaker, the modern Macedonian state was officially proclaimed, as a federal state within Tito's Yugoslavia, receiving recognition from the Allies.

From the start of the new Yugoslavia the authorities organised frequent purges and trials of Macedonian communists and non-party people charged with autonomist deviation. Many of the former left-wing IMRO government officials, were purged from their positions then isolated, arrested, imprisoned or executed on various (in many cases fabricated) charges including: pro-Bulgarian leanings, demands for greater or complete independence of Yugoslav Macedonia, collaboration with the Cominform after the Tito-Stalin split in 1948, forming of conspirative political groups or organisations, demands for greater democracy, etc. In 1948 fully disappointed from the policy of the authorities Brashnarov complained of it in letters to Stalin and to Georgi Dimitrov. As a result he was arrested in 1950 and in 1951 imprisoned in Goli Otok concentration camp where he died.

Sources

* Веселин Ангелов,"Македонският въпрос в българо-югославските отношения (1944-1952)", УИ "Св. Климент Охридски", София 2005, стр. 437-444 bg icon

* Speech on United Macedonia and the army of the Macedonians "the struggle of the Ilinden combatants with that one of the young Macedonian Army... for an ideal achievement - liberated and united Macedonia” [http://www.soros.org.mk/archive/G08/A08/sa5709.htm]