Today will be the premiere of the BGNES documentary "MPO - 100-year Struggle For the Independence of Macedonia". On this occasion, one of the present-day leaders of the MPO and former editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Macedonian Tribune", published in the USA, wrote a special address.
BGNES is publishing the address of Dr Lubomir Todorov.
Over the last century, many articles and books have been written about the Macedonian Patriotic Organization of the US and Canada, attempting to explain this organization's views, mission, and position. Depending on the author’s country of origin, inclination, or vested interest, these writings have ranged from cautiously positive to significantly negative, usually focusing on a selected partial set of MPO principles, often missing a comprehensive and holistic view of MPO’s mission.
Today, a different account of the MPO is being introduced -- a documentary movie containing first-hand personal stories of MPO members recorded during the 102nd MPO Annual Convention in 2023 in Columbus, Ohio.
Any organization with a continuing existence of more than a century instigates respect and curiosity. To understand the reasons for the perseverance of the MPO for more than 100 years, during one of the most turbulent periods in world history, let’s outline the MPO's original ideas, mission, and brief history, which have not always been widely known or accurately presented.
The MPO was founded in 1922 as the Macedonian Political Organization in the US and Canada. In 1956, the word “Political” was replaced with “Patriotic” to avoid any misunderstanding in line with the US law restricting the political engagement of non-profit organizations.
MPO is not just another emigrant organization in the US aiming to preserve the culture and tradition of economic emigrants. MPO was established as an integral part and is a product of the Macedonian Liberation Movement, which was resurrected after WW1 with two clearly defined goals – creating an independent Macedonian state as a solution to the Macedonian Question and preserving and promoting the truth about Macedonia and its people.
In 1922, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a group of former Ilinden fighters founded a political organization of immigrants from Macedonia in the US and Canada who would fight legally for the freedom of Macedonia. Although most of the MPO members were of Bulgarian heritage, they aimed to create an independent state in their motherland, Macedonia, where all ethnic groups and religions, not just their own, would be free to thrive. This inclusiveness, quite unusual for the Balkans at the time, where the majority rarely showed any mercy for the minority, became a vision, motivation, and driving force of the MPO for over 100 years.
The political direction of the MPO was outlined by Jordan Chkatrov, who, at the request of Todor Alexandrov, visited the US in 1924 and initiated the establishment of the MPO headquarters office in Indianapolis, and in 1927, founded the MPO newspaper “Macedonian Tribune” and the MPO Information Bureau in New York City.
For the next 70 years, the MPO stood firmly to its founding principles and continued the fight for independence and justice for Macedonia and its people. In the 1920s, the MPO raised its voice against the brutal denationalization of the Macedonian Bulgarians in Greece and Serbia. The MPO continued the fight after 1934 when the VMRO and Macedonian Organizations were banned in Bulgaria. The MPO didn’t stop its fight even after WW2 when the communists in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria took power and imposed a new Yugo-Macedonianism doctrine. The MPO remained the only Macedonian organization in the world to keep alive the fight for Macedonian freedom and justice until the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe brought a glimmer of hope for establishing an independent Macedonian state.
In 1991, the Vardar Macedonia emerged as an independent state from Yugoslavia. During the next several years, the MPO aggressively pressed and significantly contributed to the recognition of the Republic of Macedonia by the US government and the entire world community, while Bulgaria became the first country in the world to recognize it.
What makes the MPO unique and different from all the other organizations worldwide can be seen in the name their founders carefully selected, which speaks about the organization's character and mission - the MPO is a Macedonian organization with a political and patriotic mission located in North America.
The uniqueness of the MPO is that it’s not just another ethnic organization with a mission to unite people from a single ethnic group. The mission of the MPO is not to unite all Bulgarians or all Macedonians today. There are many such ethnic organizations in the world. Still, there is only one MPO - a Macedonian political organization founded by Macedonian-Bulgarians with a mission to unite all immigrants from Macedonia, regardless of their ethnic background or religion, who support the free and independent Macedonian civic state for all its citizens and the preservation of the historical truth about its people.
An exclusive value of the MPO is that it is an American organization that has represented, voiced, and documented the views of the only people from Macedonia who enjoyed freedom and democracy throughout the 20th century. The MPO was always an organization of unquestionable integrity, supported exclusively by the funds and donations of its own people. While the VMRO was banned during most of the 20th century in Yugoslavia, Greece, and communist Bulgaria, the MPO continued to voice and disseminate its views and beliefs worldwide.
The MPO leaders believed that establishing an interdependent Macedonian state would solve the Macedonian question, as they didn’t account for the devastating impact of the 70 years of educational misinformation and indoctrination of the people in Macedonia. However, Macedonia in 1991 was quite different from the one in 1921. Even today, more than 30 years after taking Macedonia out of Yugoslavia, it’s hard to take Yugoslavia out of Macedonia.
The mission of the MPO always had two core components – advocating a free and independent Macedonian state and preserving and promoting the truth about the Macedonian Bulgarian heritage of its people. These values are inseparable from the MPO because, historically, Macedonian independence originated from Macedonian Bulgarians, and mentioning one without the other is not an accurate or complete representation of the MPO mission.
Most MPO members today consider themselves Macedonian-Americans or Macedonian-Canadians. They strongly identify with Macedonia and its history as their area of origin. At the same time, they are aware and very proud of their Bulgarian heritage.
Because of that harmony between the past and present, the MPO could serve today as a natural bridge for resolving historical misunderstandings and endorsing good relationships between North Macedonia and Bulgaria. Let’s also hope that the historical injustice done to the Macedonian Bulgarian in North Macedonia will soon be corrected and that they will be offered the same rights as other citizens, enabling the country’s admission to the European Union.
Let us also express our sincere gratitude to the USA and Canada, the countries that welcomed and enabled the MPO members to freely keep their struggle for the freedom of Macedonia and promote the historical truth about its people for more than a century.
I thank the BGNES Team for attending the 2023 MPO Convention and making this historical documentary movie. It took over a century, along with the vision and support of the BGNES Agency owner, Mr Lubcho Neshkov, for this initiative to be realized, which we appreciate and will be appreciated by future generations.
Today, we remember the remarkable and monumental work that generations of MPO members have done to keep the fight for Macedonian freedom and the truth about its people alive over the last century. We should especially recognize the colossal contributions to the MPO made by Jordan Chkatrov, who established the direct connection with the VMRO leaders Todor Alexandrov and Ivan Mihailov and introduced the most prominent future leaders to the MPO -- Asen Avramov, Boris Zografov, Luben Dimitrov and Petar Atzev -- who lead the MPO for more than 60 years.
In 1946 Chkatrov's life ended tragically in Idrizovo prison near Skopie, where he spent his last days surrounded by thousands of other Macedonian Bulgarians imprisoned in Yugoslavia, such as Dr Vasil Ivanov, Dr Nikola Andonov, Dr Konstantin Robev, Luben Topchev, Metodi Kalkashliev, Angel Dimov, Angel Mishev, Temelko Neshkov, Dimitar Voinitsaliev, Vasil Nastev, Angel Mitrev, Lazar Krainichanetz, and many others, some of whom survived and later emigrated to join the MPO.
Watching the movie and listening to the stories and views recounted by the MPO members living in North America can help us imagine how the people in North Macedonians could have developed and thought today without the exposure to decades of various oppressions and systemic anti-Bulgarian indoctrination.
Let me finish with the words of another two prominent Macedonian Bulgarians from Prilep - Dimche Palislamov and Temelko Neshkov. Although the MPO founders are long gone, we can hear their voices through the words of their descendants, confirming that until freedom is achieved, there is no separation.
Thank you. /BGNES
