Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising

Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising
A map of the uprising in the regions of Macedonia and Thrace. Present-day borders are visible, together with Ottoman frontiers at the time.
Date 2 August 1903 – November 1903 Location Manastir (Bitola), Adrianople, Salonica, and Kosovo vilayets of the Ottoman Empire Result Suppression of the uprising. 30,000 refugees flee to Bulgaria.
Belligerents
IMARO	Ottoman Empire
Commanders and leaders
Dame Gruev Boris Sarafov Nikola Karev Georgi Sugarev Mihail Gerdzhikov Lazar Madzharov Stamat Ikonomov	Hilmi Pasha Omer Ruchidi Pasha
Strength
26,408 (IMARO figures)	350,931 (IMARO figures)
Casualties and losses
IMARO figures: 994 insurgents killed or wounded 4,694 civilians killed 3,122 girls and women raped 176 girls and women kidnapped 12,440 houses burned 70,835 people left homeless	5328 wounded or killed (IMARO figures)

The Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising or simply the Ilinden Uprising of August 1903 (Bulgarian: Илинденско-Преображенско въстание, trl: Ilindensko-Preobražensko vǎstanie; Macedonian: Илинденско востание, Ilindensko vostanie; Greek: Εξέγερση του Ίλιντεν, Eksegersi tou Ilinden) was an organized revolt against the Ottoman Empire, which was prepared and carried out by the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization. The name of the uprising refers to Ilinden (Cyrillic script: Илинден), the Bulgarian and Macedonian name for Elijah's day, and to Preobrazhenie (Cyrillic script: Преображение), which means Transfiguration.

The British journalist of the Balkans H. N. Brailsford wrote in his book "Macedonia: Its Races and Their Future": The moment for which the Bulgarian population had been preparing for ten years, arrived on the festival of the Prophet Elijah's day — the evening of Sunday, August the 2nd, 1903. At the same time on the other end of the SMARO's territory, in Eastern Thrace, the leaders of the Adrianople Vilayet comitajis, had unanimously agreed that they were not ready for uprising, but out of a feeling of solidarity, had voted for a rising. So in Strandzha the rising had begun on the Feast of the Transfiguration, August 19, 1903. Evidences of the Bulgarian sentiments of the insurgents during the rising are abundant.

The rebellion in the region of Macedonia affected most of the central and southwestern parts of the Monastir Vilayet receiving the support mainly of the local Bulgarian peasants and to some extent of the Aromanian population of the region. Provisional government was established in the town of Kruševo (to the west of Prilep), where the insurgents proclaimed the Kruševo Republic under the presidency of the school teacher Nikola Karev, which was overrun after just ten days, on August 12. On August 19, a closely related uprising organized by Bulgarian peasants in the Adrianople Vilayet led to the liberation of a large area in the Strandzha Mountains near the Black Sea coast, and the creation of a provisional government in Vassiliko, the Strandzha Republic. This lasted about twenty days before being put down by the Turks.

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