Boris Sarafov

Boris Petrov Sarafov (Bulgarian and ; 12 June 1872 – 28 November 1907) was a Bulgarian Army officer, revolutionary, leader of the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee (SMAC) and the pro-Bulgarian, rightist wing of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO). He self-identified occasionally as a Macedonian. Sarafov was a member of the General Staff of the Ilinden Uprising. After the uprising, he continued participating in the revolutionary movement until his assassination by IMRO's leftist faction in 1907.

Biography

Early life Boris Sarafov was born on 12 July 1872 in the village Libyahovo, Nevrokop region, in the Salonica vilayet of the Ottoman Empire (today Ilinden, Bulgaria). His relatives actively promoted the use of Bulgarian instead of Greek in schools and churches. His uncle, Kosta Sarafov, and his grandfather, Archimandrite Hariton, were active in the Bulgarian church struggle, while his father, Petar Sarafov, was an educational activist. In 1885, his father and grandfather were arrested after Greeks gave them up, and Sarafov saw them being taken in chains through the streets of Thessaloniki. They were exiled to a prison in Asia Minor, but his father managed to escape and went to Sofia.

After completing primary education in his native village, he received education at the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki. In 1895, he resigned from the army to serve the Macedonian cause. Through his teacher in Thessaloniki, Trayko Kitanchev, he became part of the revolutionary movement. but failed to incite an uprising. Sarafov was not able to convince the locals to follow him. He ended up systematically destroying six villages and almost all of the grapevine in the area.

In 1896, he proposed that the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) seemingly kidnap him while he was traveling with a Russian passport, allowing IMRO activists to hold him for ransom and gain revenue for their cause. Sarafov also suggested kidnapping the Serbian king to gain money. in exchange for material and financial support for the Macedonian cause, but the consul rejected the offer, saying that they had enough volunteers. In the 6th Convention of SMAC held in Sofia on 1-5 May 1899, Sarafov was elected as its president, At the end of August, Sarafov and Toma Davidov, secretary of SMAC, gained the approval of the Bulgarian Minister for War for the creation of volunteer detachments of Macedonian emigrés in the case of war. He also made such a claim for a Viennese newspaper and in the following year, he stated: "We the Macedonians are neither Serbs nor Bulgarians, but simply Macedonians." He organized a network for smuggling weapons from Bulgaria into Macedonia and Andrianople, raising money for both SMAC and IMRO. He also sponsored the anarchist group Boatmen of Thessaloniki, which carried out terrorist attacks in Thessaloniki in April 1903.

A criticism of Sarafov is that he was more concerned with his own agenda than the people he claimed to represent. In 1903, Krste Misirkov wrote that Sarafov was in opposition to the Bulgarian government, attempting to separate Macedonian politics from Bulgarian politics.

After the failure of the uprising, Sarafov returned to Bulgaria, where he remained active in Macedonian affairs. where he was the main target of criticism, with him being charged that he took money from Serbs, assisted Serbian detachments to enter Macedonia, and sent his own detachments to spread discord to install himself as the leader of the Organization. The assassination of him and Garvanov led to the final disintegration of IMRO. He was buried in the Central Sofia Cemetery.

Legacy In 1939, journalist and historian Joseph Swire described him as "violent, tiresome, unscrupulous, with a genius for publicity, a picturesque figure who became legendary." American journalist Albert Sonnichsen recognized his service to the Macedonian cause, but depicted him as a tool of the Bulgarian royal court like the modern Macedonian historiography. In North Macedonia, Sarafov's persona has been partially rehabilitated, as his role in the Ilinden uprising is generally downplayed, even though he was one of the main commanders. In 2013, a biography of him by Pavel Shatev was published. As part of the controversial Skopje 2014 project, a monument to Sarafov was erected in the center of the city in 2013, which was a donation by sculptor Valentina Stevanovska. The monument was removed due to construction works on 10 December 2016 but its location is unknown. A street was named after Sarafov in Skopje but its name was changed in 2021.

In Sofia, a street is named after Sarafov.

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