Mara Buneva

Mara Buneva (; 1902 – January 13, 1928) was a Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary, a member of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, who assassinated Velimir Prelić, a former Serbian Chetnik commander and Yugoslav legal official of the Skopje Oblast. She shot herself in the chest, and subsequently died in a hospital a few hours after the attack, while Prelić died a few days later.

In general Buneva is considered a heroine in Bulgaria, while in North Macedonia she is regarded as a controversial Bulgarophile. Her death is commemorated annually at the place where she shot herself on Vardar in Skopje.

Biography Buneva was born in 1902, in Tetovo, then in the Kosovo Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire (present-day North Macedonia). Her family originates from the village of Setole. She was raised as a Bulgarian Exarchist. In 1926, she divorced, and under the influence of her brother Boris, also a Bulgarian officer, Buneva joined the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO). Later on direct order by the leader of the IMRO, Ivan Mihaylov, she was trained in Sofia for fulfilling of future terrorist actions. In 1927, she went back to Yugoslavia and opened a shop in Skopje with a conspiratorial mission.

There she managed to acquaint herself with Velimir Prelić, the legal adviser of the Serbian governor of the Skopje district. Prelić was instrumental in arrests of young local students, members of Macedonian Youth Secret Revolutionary Organization (MYSRO). The organization was discovered by the authorities in May 1927 and its leaders were arrested. In a trial in Skopje against 20 of them, most were sentenced in December to long-term imprisonment. As a result, IMRO ordered the execution of Prelić. The task was given to Buneva. Mencha Karnicheva, assassin of Todor Panitsa and Mihaylov's wife, who strongly inspired her, met her before the assassination in Skopje in 1928. At the appointed time on January 13, 1928, Buneva intercepted him on his way to lunch and shot the official after which she committed suicide. On the next day, the Serbian police buried Buneva's body at an unknown place. Prelić also died in hospital a few days later and was buried in Skopje.

Legacy A commemorative plate was mounted at the death place of Buneva in 1943 by the Bulgarian authorities, later destroyed by the Yugoslav communist authorities. A bTV - news screenshot, showing а broken plate commemorating Buneva on the Vardar river levee, after being destroyed by local ultra-nationalists. After her death, the Serbian authorities attempted to remove every trace of her. The first Macedonian Patriotic Organization ladies auxiliary branch was created in Toronto in 1928 and named after her. Bulgaria and its diaspora celebrated her as a martyr for the freedom of Macedonia. Two commemorative ceremonies also occurred in Skopje. Members of the Bulgarian regime, including Mihaylovists and collaborators, attended the commemorative event dedicated to her in Skopje in 1942, while Mihaylov himself sent a bouquet from Croatia. Partisans perceived the plate in Skopje as a symbol of the occupation regime. According to historian Mile Todorovski, partisan groups vandalized the area around the plate with anti-regime and communist slogans. Her commemorative plate was destroyed by the new Yugoslav communist authorities. In the period after the Second World War, Mihaylov stated that she should be annually commemorated in Skopje by the Bulgarian youth. mounting new commemorative plates. The Macedonian Orthodox Church has regularly hosted religious services dedicated to her. resulting in around 15 people being injured and an official note being sent from the Bulgarian embassy in Skopje to the authorities. According to Bulgarian officials, the repetitive incidents in Skopje are part of an ongoing anti-Bulgarian campaign there. During the 2000s, Macedonian historian Zoran Todorovski perceived the assassination as a highly moral and heroic act. Some Macedonian associations in the 2010s have declared Buneva as an ethnic Macedonian heroine, claiming she was appropriated by the Bulgarians. In 2015, the right-wing non-governmental organization "Macedonian Patriotic Association – Todor Aleksandrov" placed a commemorative plate in Macedonian on her deathplace. She has been a controversial figure in North Macedonia, being interpreted either as a "Great Bulgarian chauvinist" or a "Macedonian heroine against the Bulgarian occupier". Such an interpretation is an example of misinterpretation of historical facts. For Bulgaria, she is a "legendary Bulgarian revolutionary", and her act left a "deep imprint on Bulgarian history". In the same year, another commemorative event was organized by the Bulgarian Cultural Club in Skopje. The Macedonian public perceived the placement of the figures as partisanship. The members of the Bulgarian Cultural Club of Skopje condemned her appropriation within the Macedonian national narrative.