UNITED MACEDONIA

The bomb attacks in Solun were conducted in April 1903 by the Gemidzhii Circle in an attempt to force the European countries to interfere for the improvement of the situation in Aegean Macedonia

 On April 15, 1903, a member of the group, Pavel Shatev, uses dynamite to blow up the French ship “Guadalquivir” which was leaving the Solun harbour. The bomber leaves the ship together with the other passengers; he is later caught by the Turkish police at the Skopie train station. The same night, other group members, Dimitar Mechev, Iliya Trachkov, and Milan Arsov, strike the railway between Thessaloniki and Istanbul, causing damage to the locomotive and some of the cars of a passing train, without wounding passengers.

The commencing signal for the large raid in Solun is given by Kostadin Kirkov who uses explosives to shut off the electricity and water-supplying systems of the city. Jordan Popjordanov (Ortse) blows up the building of an Ottoman Bank office, under which the gemidzhii had previously dug up a tunnel. Milan Arsov throws bombs in the Alhabra Café. The same night Kostadin Kirkov, Il. Bogdanov, and Vladimir Pingov detonate bombs in different parts of the city. Dimitar Mechev and Ilija Truchkov fail to blast the reservoir of a gas-producing plant; they are later on killed in their quarters during a shoot-out with army and gendarmerie forces, against which Mechev and Trachkov use more than 60 bombs. Jordan Popjordanov is killed too on April 17. On April 18, Kostadin Kirkov is also killed, while trying to blow up a postal office. Right before being caught, Cvetko Traikov, whose mission is to kill the local governor, kills himself by setting off a bomb and then sitting on it.

As a response to the attacks, the Turkish Army and bashibozouks (irregulars) massacre many innocent Macedonians in Solun, and later on in Bitola. Pavel Shatev, Marko Boshniakov, Georgi Bogdanov and Milan Arsov are arrested and sentenced by a court martial to a penal colony in Murzuk, 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 Solun and other cities are incarcerated.

Ilija Truchkov Veles - 1903 Thessaloniki

During the attacks he made an unsuccessful attempt to blow up the Austrian Post Office, then he threw bombs in the crowd on the main street. When Ortse blew up the Ottoman Bank, he and Mechev started throwing bombs from the windows of their house. After the last explosive was used, they deliberately exposed themselves to the bullets of the Turkish soldiers and persihed.  

 Pavel Potsev Shatev 1882 Kratovo 1951 Bitola

Born in Kratovo, then in the Ottoman Empire, Shatev graduated from the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki. In late April 1903, together with a group of young anarchists from the Gemidzhii Circle, he launched a campaign of terror bombing known as the Thessaloniki bombings of 1903. He used dynamite to blow up the French ship "Guadalquivir" which was leaving Thessaloniki harbour. He was captured and sentenced to death, but later his sentence was changed to life imprisonment in Fezzan in modern day Libya. In 1908, after the Young Turks revolution, Shatev was amnested, went to Bulgaria and graduated in law at Sofia University. In the next few years he worked as a teacher and journalist. In 1925, Shatev was one of the founders of Comintern IMRO (United) in Vienna. In the 1930s, he went back to Bulgaria and worked as a lawyer and publicist. In 1934, the Balkan Secretariat of the Comintern issued a resolution for the recognition of Macedonian ethnicity.

After the beginning of World War II, Shatev was engaged in Communist conspiracy. As this was considered a political offence, he was arrested and sentenced to 15 years of prison. After the end of the war, Shatev, who had developed a Slav Macedonian consciousness while in prison, took part in the creation of the new People's Republic of Macedonia as a member of ASNOM. He was elected Minister of Justice in the first communist government and later became vice-chairman of the Presidium of ASNOM. After the first elections for parliament, Shatev became a deputy. 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, demands for greater democracy and the like. In 1948, disappointed with the policy of the new Yugoslav Macedonian authorities, Shatev, together with Panko Brashnarov, complained in letters to Joseph Stalin and to Georgi Dimitrov. As a result, he was arrested and imprisoned for a year. After that, Shatev was taken into home custody in Bitola.

On January 30, 1951, his dead body was found on Bitola's dung-hill.

Long live theiir memory and their dream.

Long live Macedonia