#Mihail Gerdzhikov

[argyrocratie]

"One evening a Japanese diplomat arrived at the hotel. At first Gerdzhikov thought he was a journalist. After exchanging polite formalities characteristic of the Japanese, the diplomat expressed his own "deep sympathy" and that of "the entire Japanese people" for the liberation struggle of the Macedonians. In the name of the government of "the land of the rising sun" he pledged their support for this "just cause" and promised unlimited supplies of arms which would be delivered to a port to be designated by Gerdzhikov. The diplomat also promised financial aid, and at that very meeting he was prepared to hand over a total of 100,000 pounds sterling.

Gerdzhikov was alone with the diplomat. He politely expressed thanks but declined the offer, saying that as a representative he would first have to consult the organization and also confer with his comrade who was not present at the moment. Gerdzhikov then expressed his great surprise at this "noble gesture" and asked the diplomat what "higher motives" or superior state interests of a very distant country could motivate such a "kind" offer of assistance for his people's revolutionary struggle for its freedom. He repeated this view, emphasizing the words "revolution" and "freedom". The Japanese diplomat again underlined his sympathies for the Macedonians and added that he had already received the consent of the other representative of the organization. At this point in the tale Gerdzhikov said with a smile: "How generous the Japanese are! And what pains Sarafov had to go to - in vain, as it turned out - to obtain even a modicum of goodwill from the English. They were only lured into potentially giving financial aid by being guaranteed that after the liberation of Macedonia - wait for it - ... they would be entitled to fish in Lake Ohrid!"

Concluding his recollections of the meeting with the Japanese diplomat, Gerdzhikov said: "While I was there alone, and in the course of the European trip, I thought long and hard about why our cause should be the focus of such kind attention from a country whose monarch made his subjects revere him as a demigod and who held his people in the same grip of servitude as the Ottomans did us."

"The mystery was revealed a little later with the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). Japan had aimed to fuel and spread conflicts in the Balkans in order to involve Russia and help tie down its forces, which in turn would facilitate Japan's own expansive plans. The 'admiration' shown by the Japanese diplomat for the heroism of the people of Macedonia and Thrace thus was only a pretext and had no real meaning at all. Every state makes its imperialist calculations and is indifferent to bloodshed, suffering, and the ruined lives of people."

-Georgi Khadziev, "Down with the Sultan, long live the Balkan Federation!" (1992)

[1015revolt]

Mihail Gerdzhikov was a leader of the Strandzha Commune and the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising, he was an Anarchist and Commander of the VMRO in Thrace, and member of the Macedonian Secret Revolutionary Committee an Anarchist and Balkan Federation supporting organisation.

[sobrelaanarquiayotrostemas]

Mihail Gerdzhikov (Vida y obra)

Mihail-Gerdzhikov.

Mihail Gerdzhikov en  búlgaro, (Михаил Герджиков)  (1987-1947). Nació el  26 de enero de 1877 en Plovdiv, (Imperio Otomano) y murió el 18 de marzo de 1947 en Sofía, (Bulgaria) a la edad de 70 años. 

Fue un revolucionario y anarquista búlgaro, su esposa fue Yanka Kanevcheva.

Gerdzhikov estaba bajo una fuerte influencia anarquista y rechazó el nacionalismo de las minorías…

[flamelikesunset]

Mihail Gerdzhikov, one of the famous Bulgarian anarchists, was born in Plovdiv in 1877. He studied at the French College, where he received the nickname Michelle. As a student in 1893 he started his revolutionary activities as the leader of a Macedonian Secret Revolutionary Committee (MSRC). Then he studied in Switzerland (Lozana and Geneva), where he made close connections with the revolutionary immigration and founded the so called Geneve group, an extension of MSRC. Gerdzhikov was under strong anarchist influence and rejected the nationalisms of the ethnic minorities of the Ottoman Empire, favouring alliances with ordinary Muslim people against the Sultanate and the idea about a Balkan Federation. In 1899 he comes back to the Balkans and worked as a teacher in Bitola. He becomes a member of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization and a close friend of the famous revolutionary Gotse Delchev. He was the great mind that organized and led the Preobrazhenie Uprising in July 1903, a revolt against the Ottoman authorities in Thrace, based itself amongst the Bulgarian peasants. Gerdzhikov's forces, about 2,000 strong and poorly armed, managed to establish a “Strandzha commune”. In 1919 the Federation of Anarchist Communists of Bulgaria (FAKB) was founded at a congress opened by Gerdzhikov. In 1925 he was among the founders of IMRO (United) in Vienna.