Kruševo Manifesto


The Krusevo Manifesto is a presumable manifesto published by the Revolutionary Committee of Kruševo Republic during the 1903 Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising. It is regularly quoted by modern Macedonian historiography as it had outlined the aims of the Uprising. It was calling upon the Muslim population to join forces with the republican government in the struggle against tyranny and to attain democratic form of statehood. It urged that the uprising was against the Sultanate, and that it was not religiously or ethnically based. More, this manifesto is cited as historical example of the use of a separate Macedonian language during the uprising. However there is no original preserved and its historical authenticity is disputed. Macedonian historiography refers to a text that was compiled about twenty years after the events and published in 1923 by Nikola Kirov in Sofia, as part from a play. In fact at the turn of the 20th century there were only a few researchers who claimed that a separate Macedonian language existed.