Portrait of Great Macedonians
Tasho
Gone - but Never Forgotten
Read his thoughts published in the New York Times (1924)
Born in Prilep, Macedonia, Jordan Chkatrov came to America in 1924 as a
special envoy of the Executive Committee of the Brotherhoods of
Bulgaria, to attend the Third Annual MPO (Macedonian Political
Organizations, today Macedonian Patriotic Organizations) Convention, in
Fort Wayne, Indianna. Chkatrov was elected Secretary of the Central
Committee and immediately proceeded to both consolidate and expand the
organization throughout America. After the assassination of Todor
Alexandrov in 1924, Chkatrov played an important role in convincing the
MPO membership to support the new IMRO leader Ivan Mihailoff, who was
then largely unknown in America. The next task Chkatrov accomplished
was to ensure the establishment of MPO's own printed newspaper the
"Makedonska Tribuna". The first issue appeared 10 Feb 1927, and it is
still published today. At the 6th Congress in Akron, Ohio on 11 Sep
1927, Chkatrov was re-elected secretary, but considered his work in
America was finished and so he returned to Bulgaria.
Jordan Chkatrov continued to be very active among the Macedonian
immigration in Bulgaria until the coup of 1934 when he left Sofia
together with numerous Macedonian revolutionaries. He went to
Switzerland and continued his law studies. In 1941 he returned to
Skopie and established a law practice. For all practical purposes he
stayed out of politics after the 1934 Zveno Coup.
In 1944 Metodi Andonov-Cento, the president of Anti-Facist Assembly for
the National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM), invited Jordan Chkatrov
to join the Communist Partisans. He declined because he did not believe
in the Yugoslavian Communist Party's solution to the Macedonian
Question.
Despite Cento's personal guarantee of safety, both Chkatrov brothers
were arrested and imprisoned in Skopie when the communists took power
in 1945. Dimche Chkatrov was sentenced to death and executed on Dec.
23, 1946. Jordan Chkatrov, sentenced to prison for 15 years, began a
hunger strike the same day his brother was executed. He died 27 days
later.
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when Chkatrov, who spoke English fluently, first visited the USA in
1924 he gave the following lengthy interview
New York Times - August 10, 1924, Section 10, p12
SAYS MACEDONIANS WANT A REPUBLIC
Their Representative From Bulgaria Declares Aim is a Balkan Federation
Describes Suffering Now
Serb and Greek Domination Has Resulted In Deplorable Conditions for
People
A story of conditions in Macedonia, which he ascribes to Serb and Greek
domination, has been brought to this country by J Chkatroff,
representative of the Union of the Macedonian Organizations of Bulgaria
for the United States and Canada, who arrived here from Sofia recently.
The Macedonians, he said, want complete independence and hope that
ultimately there will be a Balkan Republic, with all Balkan countries,
federated States.
Mr Chkatroff said yesterday he represented approximately 450,000
Macedonians in Bulgaria, who are members of ninety-four fraternal
organizations, thirty-four societies of youths,a score of benevolent
associations and others. He expects to bring his message of Macedonian
hopes to the 60,000 natives of that country in the United States.
"In order to understand the causes of the unruly situation in the
Balkans and especially in Macedonia, the country which has always been
the apple of discord among the Balkan neighbours one must not forget
her struggle for liberty and political independence during the period
of Turkish domination, and the present day policy of her new
conquerors, Serbs and Greeks," he said. "Many years ago the Macedonian
people began a bloody revolutionary war, which has lasted already more
than a quarter of a century, and this caused on several occasions the
European chancelleries to move, and finally in 1912 the Balkan Alliance
was formed against the Turkish Empire. Unfortunately, the First Balkan
War, and the following fratricide among the Balkan Allies culminating
in the Treaty of Bucharest of 1913 instead of creating an independent
Macedonia in accordance with the wishes of her people, and thus to
establish a permanent peace in the Balkans, divided the country between
the three belligerents, Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria. This actually made
the Macedonian crisis worse.
Errors Are Kept Up
"The last European War which radically changed the map of Europe and
which gave us the great principles of self-determination of Woodrow
Wilson, did not bring to the Macedonian question its deserved political
solution. Macedonia, at that time, was waiting day and night to see
those principles applied to her people,so that the latter may be able
to freely determine their wishes as to the future of their country. But
the Treaty of Peace of Neuilly (1919) seconded the grave errors
committed by the Treaty of Bucharest.
"It is true that the great victorious powers imposed upon the
Governments of Serbia and Greece a treaty for the protection of
minorities, which was supposed to guarantee the minimum of
political,civil and national rights of the Macedonians. This treaty has
now become as valueless as a scrap of paper. The Serbian and Greek
Governments instead of creating a normal regime in Macedonia as soon as
they reoccupied the country after the great war closed by force more
than 1,400 Bulgaro-Macedonian schools with 80,000 pupils and more than
4,000 teachers, which were devotedly supported and financed by the
local population; seized the Macedonian churches,libraries and cultural
institutions; burned all Bulgarian books and killed or banished from
the country all of the Macedonia intelligentsia. Nor was the fate of
our other compatriots, Turks and Rumanians, in Macedonia a better one.
The heavy fetter of the Serbian and Greek tyranny are to be found today
on the doors of the closed Rumanian and Turkish schools and public
libraries in Macedonia.
"In addition to this policy of the Serbian and Greek Governments, which
is directed against the moral and intellectual institutions of the
Macedonian people, following the practice of former Turkish
Governments, they began to use new means and methods in order to
artificially change the ethnographic character of the country; they
resorted to a policy of colonization. Today Serbian and Greek
authorities deport the native Macedonian population, plunder their
property and distribute same among colonists brought from Banat and
Asia Minor. To have an idea of the terrible picture one must visit the
thousands of recently arrived refugees, flying from Macedonia into
Bulgaria, a country economically poor, and see their tortured bodies
burned with hot irons or boiling oil.
Cities Are slowly Dying.
"There are two further reasons which aggravate the situation in
Macedonia. First, there is a Serbian and Greek administration, whose
officers are alien to the people; notorious corruption and sheer force
are the only rules in the country, and it seems that the whip is their
Constitution. One could find out proofs of this by reading Serbian and
Greek newspapers. Secondly, the newly created political frontiers tore
away the economic bonds between Macedonian cities and districts.
Serbian Macedonia has no sea outlet and is gradually dying. Greek
Macedonia has no "hinterland," while the remaining part of
Macedonia-under Bulgarian authority-has neither sea, nor any convenient
land communications with the interior of that country, and for this
reason, is in a worse condition. The principal economical and political
centre in Macedonia is Salonica, which has all the advantages of
prosperity, yet at present the city gradually, but certainly is dying.
Her people do not see any more the steaming boats, the commerce is dead
and the merchants are leaving the town. Pathras and Pereas are rising
on her ruins. Bitolia,Prilep, Ochrid and many other towns are sharing
the same fate.
"Under such heavy conditions could the Macedonian people remain quiet?
With their country torn into pieces could they forget the thousands of
lives sacrificed for the liberty and independence of Macedonia, ever
since the days of the Turkish regime? Who could deny the right of the
Macedonian to struggle for existence? Who could forbid the Macedonians
the fruit of their labours so that the latter may not be plundered by
Serbian and Greek authorities and the Macedonian girls and brides may
not be insulted by the same?
"And the Macedonian did exactly as an American, Frenchman or an
Englishman would have done. The whole people were frightened by the
terror of the new tyranny and rose up to protest.
"Banished from their own country, the Macedonians found refuge in
Bulgaria, America, Turkey and Rumania, where they formed strong
organizations whose aim is by legal means to obtain liberty for their
country. The Macedonian emigration in all lands, who number more than
half a million souls, proclaimed their faith in the traditions of past
generations and now appeal continuously to the human conscience of the
civilized people in the world for the creation of Macedonia into a free
country, which would serve as an element of peace and union of the
Balkan people after the American political model.
Old Revolutionary Model
"Meanwhile in Macedonia proper, after denying the people all rights of
carrying a legal political struggle of forming a national political
group in the Parliament of Belgrade and Athens, they resorted to the
only possible action by creating anew the old secret revolutionary
organization with its own postal service, courts, militia and
efficiently armed military forces, with its own educational and
economic policy -- in other words, representing a true State
organization, mysterious, yet powerful and democratic in spirit, whose
ideals are the creation of an independent Macedonia with equal rights
for all of her different nationalities, with Saloniki as her capital.
"The Macedonians are neither brigands nor breakers of the laws
governing public order and safety, when they are ready to sacrifice
their lives for the triumph of their ideals, when they gladly go to die
in order to defend their wives and children, when they calmly meet
death in order to save Macedonia. And in their struggle for right and
freedom the Macedonians hope that they may receive the support of all
civilized nations and all liberty loving people and institutions."
www.macedonianoracle.org
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