Skopje, 13 September 2026 (MIA)

Slobodan Ivanov

“An independent Macedonia as an equal member of the Balkan Federation!” This is the political creed of Macedonians who sincerely love their homeland, regardless of their religion, beliefs, gender, or age. And we will not stop advocating and instilling this slogan in the minds of patriotic Macedonians until it becomes part of their very flesh and blood. Only then can we believe and hope that, through the united efforts of Macedonia’s long-suffering sons, we will finally be fortunate enough, in the near future, to achieve our cherished dream: to see our homeland established as an independent state within its geographical and economic boundaries,” writes Slavcho Kovachev in his “Creed.”

On 13 September 1924, two prominent Macedonian activists, Dimo Hadzi Dimov and Vladislav (Slavcho) Kovachev, were assassinated in Sofia. Both were steadfast champions of the struggle for an independent Macedonia. Their killings were part of a wider purge orchestrated by Ivan Mihajlov and the terrorist VMRO against rivals and dissenters. Hadzi Dimov, a parliamentarian and one of the leading figures of the Macedonian Left, was shot dead on a street in the Bulgarian capital by Vlado Chernozemski (Velichko Dimitrov-Kerin). Mircho Kikiritkov, for his part, carried out the assassination of Kovachev. While Hadzi Dimov and Kovachev were being killed in Sofia during those days, the campaign against other members of the opposing currents continued in Gorna Dzumaja and elsewhere. Consequently, 12–13 September 1924, together with the days known as the “Macedonian St. Bartholomew’s Night,” became inscribed among the bloodiest episodes of the fratricidal struggles within the Macedonian revolutionary movement.

“Dimo Hadzi Dimov and Vladislav Kovachev were Macedonian revolutionaries and activists whose lives passed through several stages of revolutionary activity, yet they never wavered from the ideal of establishing an autonomous or independent Macedonia. In his early years, Kovachev was also a member of the Supreme Macedonian Committee, but his views on Macedonia and the Macedonian Question were always closer to the programme of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (VMRO) than to the policies pursued by the Supreme Macedonian Committee. Owing to his military education, he often operated in Macedonia as a voivode, or commander of a revolutionary band, while at the same time continuing his higher education,” historian Nikola Zhezhov told MIA.

From 1904 to 1909, Kovachev studied at the Faculty of Law in Paris. At a time when illiteracy rates in Macedonia itself were high, Slavcho Kovachev earned a doctorate in law in Brussels, Belgium, in 1911. Kovachev was particularly active in the Macedonian revolutionary and national liberation movement during the interwar period and was one of the ideologues and founders of the Macedonian Emigrant Federal Organization (MEFO). His book, The Political Creed of the Macedonians, in fact served as the ideological platform of the Macedonian federalists. Alongside his revolutionary activities in MEFO and the Ilinden Organization in Bulgaria, Kovachev worked as a lawyer in Sofia and was also editor-in-chief of the newspaper Autonomous Macedonia.

“Throughout his revolutionary career, Slavcho Kovachev was active in four different Macedonian organizations—the VMK, VMRO, MEFO, and the Ilinden Organization. Although these organizations differed in their aims and methods, Kovachev remained unwavering in his convictions. He never gave up his vision of an independent Macedonia within a Balkan Federation of equal and allied states and peoples,” Professor Zhezhov said.

Slavcho Kovachev advocated for an independent Macedonia as an equal member of the envisioned future Balkan Federation. As an ideologue of the Macedonian federalists, he set out ten principles in his doctrine, or so-called creed. Thus, Kovachev states:

1.   I love Macedonia more than anything else in the world.

2.   I firmly believe in its imminent liberation.

3.   I rely solely on our own strength.

4.   I do not believe in the intervention of the Great Powers.

5.   I will strive to win public support for our cause.

6.   Openly and consistently, I will advocate the federalist slogan: An independent Macedonia as an equal member of the Balkan Federation.

7.   I firmly believe that our salvation lies solely in the unity of the true Macedonian forces.

8.   I will steadfastly follow the lofty principle of the first apostles of Macedonian freedom: to keep the Macedonian cause away from the political struggles of the Balkan states.

9.   With the utmost dedication, I will provide material and moral support to Macedonian organizations whose motto is: An independent Macedonia as a member of the Balkan Federation.

10.  I devote five minutes of every day and night to Macedonia, the martyr, to confront my Macedonian conscience and convince myself that everything I have done for her so far is nothing.

“Because anyone who has been nourished by the rich Macedonian milk of the suffering Macedonian mother and has felt, even for a moment, like a true Macedonian will never again be capable of consciously becoming a traitor to the Homeland!” Vladislav Kovachev emphasizes.

“His life came to a tragic end amid the conflicts and fratricidal killings that took place within the Macedonian revolutionary movement following the assassination of Todor Aleksandrov on 31 August 1924. Kovachev was killed in Sofia on 13 September 1924 by Mircho Kikiritkov, an assassin of VMRO,” Zhezhov added.

Dimo Hadzi Dimov, or “Hadzhijata” as he was known, was also killed in Sofia by Chernozemski - only a few hours after the murder of Slavcho Kovachev. The historian recalls that he, too, was accused by the leadership of Vancho Mihajlov’s Organization of participating in the conspiracy against Todor Aleksandrov. However, there is no direct evidence to support this accusation, only unsubstantiated suspicions, much as in Kovachev’s case. The events suggest that it is far more likely that Mihajlov, who is believed to have been a possible instigator of Aleksandrov’s murder, used the assassination as an opportunity to settle accounts with both Kovachev and Hadzi Dimov.

Mircho Kikiritkov

In that same year, 1919, Georgi Kulishev, an opponent of the Provisional VMRO, had the following to say about Hadzi Dimov:

“For many years, Dimo Hadzi Dimov was an ideologue of the Sandanists. At the same time, he was both a sympathizer and an active functionary of the Bulgarian Narrow Socialist Party. Remaining faithful to the party, he embraced the principles of social revolution. Rejecting state nationalism and criticizing the national patriots inspired by the broader ideals of the Bulgarian nation, he denied the Bulgarian character of Macedonia.”

Dimo Hadzi Dimov’s revolutionary path, like that of Slavcho Kovachev, passed through several similar phases. For Hadzi Dimov, autonomy meant placing Macedonia’s self-determination and independence at the heart of the political aspirations of Macedonian national revolutionaries, particularly after the First World War. Following the partition of Macedonia after the Balkan Wars - and especially under the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest - Macedonia had, in his view, been “torn apart” among its neighbouring states. These new circumstances called for a return to the idea of a unified and indivisible Macedonia as a distinct political entity: an independent Macedonian state, separate from the other Balkan states.

Hadzi Dimov regarded Macedonia as separate from the national interests of Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece

“Do not accept a divided Macedonia as a fait accompli. Instead, once again affirm the whole of Macedonia as an autonomous political entity,” Hadzi Dimov urges. He further emphasizes: “If peoples have the right to determine their own destiny, then the Macedonian people, too, have that right. And in deciding their own fate, they need not ask Bulgaria, Serbia, or Greece, but first and foremost - themselves, and themselves alone.”

From a socialist to a national revolutionary, from a comrade-in-arms of Goce Delchev and Jane Sandanski and a member of the Ilinden-era VMRO to an advocate of legal political action and one of the founders of the People’s Federative Party in 1908. Historical circumstances had a profound influence on Dimo Hadzi Dimov’s political orientation: changing historical periods compelled the Macedonian revolutionary to adapt his activities to the realities of the time. After the end of the First World War, Dimo Hadzi Dimov was one of the founders of the Provisional Representation of the former united VMRO. Through this organization, together with the older Ilinden generation of revolutionaries, he sought to revive the programme for the creation of an autonomous Macedonia. Hadzi Dimov and his comrades also attempted to advocate these programme objectives at the sessions of the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919, where the fate of Macedonia was also being decided. Dimo Hadzi Dimov explained the ideal of Macedonian autonomy exceptionally well in his brochure Back to Autonomy, a written work that was particularly widely read and popular among Macedonian émigré organizations in Bulgaria during the interwar period. Following the dissolution of the Provisional Representation, Dimo Hadzi Dimov took part in the establishment of the Emigrant Communist Union, the Macedonian section of the Bulgarian Communist Party, which operated according to classical communist ideology, Zhezhov explains.

In January 1903, following an agreement with Goce Delchev, he left for Macedonia with Boris Sarafov’s armed band. Several months later, on 3 May, he arrived in Banica to meet Delchev. The next day, Ottoman forces attacked the village, and Delchev was killed in the battle. Hadzi Dimov witnessed his death firsthand before managing to escape and returning to Dupnica toward the end of May.

Hadzi Dimov was a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party and, toward the end of his life, became a member of parliament within the Macedonian Parliamentary Group in the National Assembly.

All in all, their most striking and characteristic common feature was that both Hadzi Dimov and Slavcho Kovachev stood ever more firmly on the Macedonian national line. With these two murders, ordered by the Vancho Mihajlov organization, the Macedonian intellectual-revolutionary movement for independence lost two of its great minds on the same day. si/dj/

Photo: AI-generated; archival material