Lazar Poptraykov


Lazar Poptraykov was a Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary and poet. He was one of the leaders of the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization in the region of Kastoria during the Ilinden Uprising. Despite his Bulgarian identification, per post-WWII Macedonian historiography he was an ethnic Macedonian.

Life

Lazar Poptraykov was born in Dambeni, Ottoman Empire on 10 April 1878. He studied at the local village school before moving to the Bulgarian junior high school in Kostur. Later he continued to study at the Bitola Bulgarian Classical High School and afterwards at Thessaloniki's Bulgarian Men High School. In Thessaloniki, one of his teachers was Pere Toshev. Poptraykov joined IMARO as early as 1895, inspired by Dame Gruev. He finished the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki in 1898, though he had started touring the Kastoria region to promote the work of IMARO two years earlier, in 1896.
Poptraykov was one of the founders of the Kastoria branch of IMARO. On 21 June 1903 he wrote a poem titled Lokvata and Vinyari to commemorate the battle of Lokvata between Bulgarian and Ottoman troops in Dendrohori during the Ilinden Uprising. His poem had large impact on the national identification of the villagers of Dendrohori whose allegiance to Bulgaria increased during the following years. Poptraykov was arrested by Ottoman authorities and imprisoned in Korçë along with fellow revolutionaries Manol Rozov, Maslina Grancharova, and Pavel Christov. Poptraykov died at the start of the Macedonian Struggle when he was assassinated by Konstantinos Christou who was acting under orders by Germanos Karavangelis, bishop of Kastoria. Per Karavangelis Poptraykov was the worst enemy of Hellenism, who fanatized the peasants in favor of the Bulgarian national idea. Christou who switched the side from Bulgarians to Greeks and vice versa, was received back by the IMRO at the insistence of Poptraykov. However, after Poptraykov had been wounded and taken a refuge with Kottas, he used the opportunity to kill him and present his head to Karavangelis who took a picture of the head on his desk.

Literature