Dame Gruev

Dame Gruev, (Bulgarian: Дамян Йованов Груев, Macedonian: Дамјан Јованов Груев, spelled in older Bulgarian orthography as Дамянъ Йовановъ Груевъ January 19, 1871 – December 23, 1906) was а revolutionary and insurgent leader in the Ottoman regions of Macedonia and Thrace. He was one of the six founders of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. He is considered a national hero in Bulgaria and North Macedonia. He is also featured in the Macedonian national anthem Denes nad Makedonija.

Dame Gruev Даме Груев (mk)
Born	(1871-01-17)January 17, 1871 Smilevo, Macedonia, Ottoman Empire
Died	December 23, 1906(1906-12-23) (aged 35) Petlec Peak, near Rusinovo, Ottoman Empire
Organization	Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization

Biography

Early years

Dame Gruev together with other rebel leaders

Dame Gruev was born in 1871 in the village of Smilevo, Monastir vilayet, Ottoman Empire (now North Macedonia). He received his elementary education in Smilevo and continued his education in the Men's High School of Thessaloniki, he would also study in Resen, Bitola, Thessaloniki and Belgrade. He was part of a group excluded from the school following a student revolt where they revolted aganist the Bulgarian propaganda and wanted school education in the back then banned Macedonian language. Gruev later continued his education in the Grandes écoles in Belgrade. Following yet another revolt, Gruev and his associates were excluded from the Great School and emigrated to Bulgaria. Gruev was enrolled in Sofia University and, later, in the Young Macedonian Literary Society. He found also the circle "Družba", whose aim was to implement "Article 23" of the Treaty of Berlin (1878) on the autonomy of Macedonia. In 1891 Gruev was expelled from the university as he was suspected in the assassination of the Minister Hristo Belchev, but subsequently, this allegation turned out to be groundless.

Gruev and his students from a Bulgarian school in Štip in 1894.

Next, Gruev left the university and returned to Ottoman Macedonia region, around 1891 till 1893 he worked as a teacher around the country looking for a job, first working as a teacher in his home town and then moving on to work as a teacher in Prilep. Eventually in late 1893 he decided to move to Thessaloniki with help from Hristo Tatarčev and Petar Pop Arsov among others, he became an inspector for local schools in Thessaloniki. Around this time he and 7 other revolutionaries came up with the Constitution and By-laws and the creation process of MRO. It was to be a secret organization under the guidance of a Central Committee, with local revolutionary committees throughout Macedonia and the region of Edirne. These regions were to be divided into revolutionary districts. In accordance with the Constitution, the first Central Revolutionary Committee was formed in the summer of 1894, under the chairmanship of Hristo Tatarčev.

1894 to 1900

Monument of Dame Gruev in Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia

In the summer of 1894 in the city of Negotino, he began organizing the first local revolutionary committee which would later be expanded all over Macedonia and Thracia, and soon after with the cooperation of Pere Tošev, the first district committee in the city of Štip. Gruev visited the cities of Resen, Ohrid, and Struga as well, and found the local population to be accepting his organization's revolutionary ideas very well. He remained a teacher in Štip during the academic year 1894–1895. In the fall of 1895 Goce Delčev arrived in Štip with the idea of laying the foundations of a revolutionary movement seeking autonomy for Macedonia and Adrianople Thrace. Gruev and Delčev met for the first time and shared their ideas there. Gruev introduced Delčev to the plan already outlined by the Central Committee of Thessaloniki. After this, both Gruev and Goce Delčev worked together in Štip and its environs.

The expansion of the IMRO at the time was phenomenal, particularly after Gruev settled in Thessaloniki during the years 1895–1897, in the quality of a school inspector. Gruev had become the soul and body of the Central revolutionary committee. Under his direction, secret revolutionary papers were issued, ciphers were introduced, pseudonyms or a nom de plume were used, and channels for secret communication between various other local and Macedonian committees were maintained. A representative of the Central Revolutionary Committee was sent to Sofia to take charge of purchasing and dispatching of the necessary war provisions for IMARC. Gruev's tirelessly travelled throughout Macedonia and the Vilayet of Adrianople and systematically established and organized committees in villages and cities. In 1897, Gruev was also one of the founders of the Society against Serbs. Unfortunately, for purely political reasons, and in order to avoid suspicion from the Ottoman authorities, IMARC decided to dismiss Gruev in 1898. Soon after his dismissal Gruev moved to Bitola and there with the cooperation of Petar Pop Arsov, Vasil Paskov and others, he began to issue a revolutionary paper.

He organized a system in which money was collected from Sunday schools through a special "revolutionary tax", and a quantity of war materials was purchased. Gruev was again appointed to the teaching staff now in the city of Bitola, and as such, he also assumed the management of the revolutionary movement in the Vilayet of Monastir (Bitola), while the active persons at the Committee in Thessaloniki were Hristo Tatarčev, Pere Tošev, and Hristo Matov. Gruev's activities in the Bitola district were not left unnoticed by the Ottoman authorities. Numerous chetas (bands) throughout the surrounding mountains began to terrorize the local authorities. Gruev, being suspected as a major factor in fostering this movement, was arrested on 6 August 1900. He was held in Bitola jail until May 1902. However, by using secret writings and ciphers, he was able to remain in contact with the local revolutionary committees and direct the affairs of the revolutionary district of Bitola.

Uprising

See also: Ilinden Uprising

In the later part of May 1902, Gruev was condemned to banishment in the prison of Podrum Kale in Anatolia. There he found Hristo Matov and Hristo Tatarčev, both sentenced to exile in January 1901. Gruev and his comrades were kept in Podroum Kale for ten months. Although he was away from Macedonia and Thrace itself, Gruev managed to keep himself informed as to the development and affairs of the MRO. He kept up a steady stream of encrypted correspondence with Thessaloniki, Bitola, and Sofia. On Easter of 1903, at the instance of a general amnesty, he was released. Gruev hastened to Thessaloniki and there he found that the Central Committee, which was in charge of the IMRO, had already resolved to declare a general insurrection which was to take place during 1903. Although Gruev was not in accord with the Central Committee's decision, primarily because of the MRO's lack of preparedness, he gave in to the decision of the Central Committee.

He left Thessaloniki and went to Smilevo where the insurrectionary Congress was to be held. The purpose of this Congress was to set the date for the declaration of the general insurrection and to outline the methods and tactics in its prosecution. Here Gruev met Boris Sarafov, who had just arrived from Bulgaria. Gruev was elected as chairman of this Congress, and the latter decided that the day of the declaration of the insurrection was to be 2 August 1903. Gruev, Boris Sarafov, and Anastas Lozančev were elected by the Congress as the three members of the General Staff and empowered to direct the insurrectionary forces in the Bitola region. Gruev lived to see the retreat of the Turkish troops from his native village of Smilevo. He was engaged, during the course of the insurrection, in numerous skirmishes with the Ottoman Army. But with the arrival of Ottoman troops, any progress of the insurrection was made impossible and in a period of six weeks, it was completely crushed. Gruev put himself on the task of touring various revolutionary districts, disarming the insurgents, and storing up the war materials for future use. Gruev and his followers continued the work of organization and preparation for another uprising.

After the uprising

Dame Gruev's dead body.

In 1904 Dame Gruev chaired the Prilep Congress of the Bitola Revolutionary District of IMRO. In the autumn of that year, Dame was captured by the Serb's leader Micko Krstić, but was set free, with the assistance of Gligor Sokolović, after his negotiations with Pere Tošev. In 1905 Gruev headed the first General Congress of the organization after the uprising, the so-called Rila Congress. Here Dame Gruev was elected as a member of the Central Committee and became in fact its leader, until his death. Indeed, Dame was the only one who appeared to be capable of mastering Jane Sandanski's ambition for leadership. However, the Rila Congress failed to erase the political differences in the organization. There arose a need to conduct a new special congress in Sofia in December 1906, which never took place. At the end of 1906, Gruev moved with his detachment from Ottoman Macedonia to Sofia to attend the special Congress. On 23 December 1906, Dame Gruev and his detachment were discovered by the Turkish authorities near the village of Rusinovo (Maleševo district). Gruev and his band were confronted by Ottoman forces and in the following battle he was killed.

Legacy

Statue at the entrance of a school in Kukliš in Strumica to which Dame Gruev is a patron

In North Macedonia, he is regarded as an important Macedonian revolutionary who fought for a separate Macedonian nation and state. For Macedonian historian Vančo Gjorgjiev, Dame Gruev was one of the main and most important leaders in the Macedonian revolutionary movement between the late 19th century and 20th century. His name is part of the Macedonian national anthem "Today over Macedonia". A monument was placed in his honor in the Macedonia Square in Skopje in 2011, as part of the "Skopje 2014" project. Regarding his death, Macedonian poet Nikola Petrov-Rusinski wrote:

Dame and the group, which also accompanied him to Rusinovo, just a few days before leaving Strumica for Rusinovo, drove several horses loaded with rifles to Kukuš. Near the Aržan Swamp, one of the horses loaded with weapons got lost and went to the village of Gavalanci, to the farm of Zora-bey. The beg returned the horse, fearing that it had been sent to him on purpose, and that he would probably be demanded a ransom for the guns. After leaving the weapons in Kukuško, without stopping, they left for Strumica and to their last destination Rusinovo - Petlec

— Nikola Petrov Rusinski,

In a Bulgarian expidition in Greenwich Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica they named one of the places after Dame Gruev. It is known as Gruev Cove.