Macedonian Patriotic Organization (MPO) is a diaspora organization in the United States and Canada. It was founded in Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States, in 1922, by Macedonian Bulgarian immigrants originating mainly from Greek Macedonia. It was originally called the Macedonian Political Organization but changed its name to the current one in 1952.
The MPO has advocated for a solution to the Macedonian Question in the form of an independent Macedonian state, in which all ethnic groups would enjoy equal human rights and freedoms. In the past, the organization has generally promoted the view that Macedonian Slavs are Bulgarians.The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World, Page 87 by Loring M. Danforth. After the Republic of Macedonia proclaimed its independence, it took a more moderate position and has been involved also in some pro-Macedonian advocacy within the US and Canada. Since 1927, MPO has published Macedonian Tribune, described as the world's oldest active Macedonian newspaper. It has been published in Bulgarian and English.
History
Background
The first Macedonian Bulgarian emigrant associations in the United States date back to 1899, with the foundation of the "Macedonian-Bulgarian Society Vasil Levski".Ivan Ilchev, (2007) To the Land That Was Never Promised. Bulgarian Emigration to the United States in the Late 19th - Early 20th Century. in Immigration and Emigration in Historical Perspective; , PLUS-Pisa University Press with Ann Katherine Isaacs as editor, pp. 119-140. Other associations include "Bulgarian-Macedonian American Committee" founded in 1904, "Nadezhda" founded in 1908, etc. In September 1913, delegates from Macedonian organizations in the United States and Canada gathered in Chicago, Illinois to form a Macedonian-Bulgarian National Union. The union published the newspaper "Svoboda", and had as its objective the autonomy for Macedonia and Adrianople. Some members of these organizations participated in the Balkan Wars as volunteers in the Macedonian-Adrianopolitan Volunteer Corps.Веселин Николов Трайков, Трендафил Митев, Документи за Македония на българската емиграция в САЩ, Канада и Австралия: т. 1, Макед. науч. инст., 1995, , стр. 41. When World War I was over, a "Bulgarian National Congress" was held in Chicago in December 1918, where the delegates voted for a resolution which was sent to the Paris Peace Conference and to the governments of the Great Powers. In this document, the Macedonian Bulgarians insisted that the Macedonian issue would be resolved by turning the area into an independent state. However, the peace treaty in 1919, divided the Macedonian area mostly by Serbia and Greece where the domestic policies of state-sponsored Serbianizaton and Hellenization of the Slavic-speaking Macedonians began. Thousands of emigres left their homes and moved to the States and Canada. For the next five years, these countries took the first places, after Bulgaria, in their numbers of Macedonian emigrants.Trendafil Mitev, MPO in the United States, Canada and Australia, Macedonian Scientific Institute, Sofia, 2002, online, Initial period.
Foundation and ideology The organization was formed in 1922.Thernstrom, Stephan ed. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1980, , p. 692. The organization managed to bring together Macedonian immigrants, primarily from Greek Macedonia. Fort Wayne in Indiana was chosen as the site for the first formative convention, which took place on October 2, 1922, with a handful of delegates, most of whom were Ilinden veterans. The first convention charted a framework within which to build the structure of the new organization. It was founded as an overseas branch of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), to lobby for the solution of the Macedonian Question in the League of Nations and with the US government.Chris Kostov, Contested Ethnic Identity: The Case of Macedonian Immigrants in Toronto, 1900-1996, Peter Lang, 2010, , pp. 141–144.Dimitar Bechev, Historical Dictionary of North Macedonia, Rowman & Littlefield, 2019, , pp. 189–190. The name selected for the organization was the "Macedonian Political Organization" which remained its name until 1952. Its adopted slogan was 'Macedonia for the Macedonians'.
MPO's Articles of Incorporation from 1925 defined its purpose as follows: "For the mutual assistance and protection of people of Macedonian race - and for the liberation of Macedonia from political entities - and to foster the ancient right of Macedonia as a state and nation - all as more fully set out in its bylaws[.]"In Re Incorporation: The Macedonian Political Organization of the United States of America and Canada, Indiana Secretary of State, July 6, 1925; Articles of Incorporation, The Indianapolis News (Indianapolis, Indiana), Jul 7, 1925, Page 28 Throughout the next several annual conventions, the delegates finalized the organization's by-laws. The membership to the MPO per its by-laws was open to all people from the Macedonian region "regardless of nationality, religion, sex or convictions". The MPO had sought Macedonian autonomy, as well as the social and political awakening of Macedonian Bulgarian immigrants.Encyclopedia of Canada's peoples – Paul R. Magocsi, Multicultural History, p. 292, University of Toronto Press, 1999] .
Early activism
To fulfill the stipulations of the MPO by-laws, the delegates to the 4th annual MPO Convention in 1925 in Indianapolis, decided to establish a newspaper that was to become an official organ of the organization. The newspaper was founded under the name Macedonian Tribune, and its publication began under the guidance and leadership of the MPO Central Committee's Secretary Jordan Tchkatroff on February 10, 1927. Since 1927, branches of the organization have organized remembrance days for the Ilinden uprising. There is an Indiana state historical marker at the newspaper's original location from 1927 to 1949 in Indianapolis. Tchkatroff's activities raised the attention of Yugoslav diplomatic and consular services in the US, which already had a watchful eye over the MPO. When Bulgaria annexed parts of Vardar Macedonia and Greek Macedonia in April 1941, the MPO initially congratulated Bulgaria's actions and supported the policy of re-introducing the Bulgarian language and clergy. However, MPO changed its stance on this matter when Bulgaria declared war on the United States in December 1941, and henceforth fully supported the US war effort.
Cold War period After World War II, the MPO had 30 to 40 active members in Fort Wayne. Despite the growth of Macedonian nationalism within diaspora circles after World War II, the MPO preserved its Macedonian Bulgarian identity. While living in exile in Italy, the last leader of the IMRO, Ivan Mihailov, managed to re-organize the MPO into a legal successor organization of the IMRO in the United States and Canada.Cattaruzza, Marina; Dyroff, Stefan; Langewiesche, Dieter eds. Territorial Revisionism and the Allies of Germany in the Second World War: Goals, Expectations, Practices, Berghahn Books, 2012, , p. 169. This was acknowledged by a CIA analyst report from 1953, which dubbed the MPO as "the US branch of the IMRO", and asserted that through its then secretary Luben Dimitroff, it acted as a money-raising organ to support Mihailov's activities. It continued to work for the old IMRO goal - an independent and united Macedonia, dominated by a Bulgarian population.James Pettifer (eds.) The New Macedonian Question, Palgrave Macmillan, 2001, , p. 173. Through its newspaper Macedonian Tribune, the MPO criticized SFR Yugoslavia and PR Bulgaria, as well as Greece's anti-Slav Macedonian policies. In the case of Socialist Yugoslavia, the MPO initially sent a letter to President Josip Broz Tito congratulating him on the establishment of an autonomous Macedonia within the federation,"The Uncomfortable Truth about the Macedonian Political Organization". Victor Sinadinoski. Independently published, 2018 [Page 31] however, the organization soon raised its voice against the historiographic revisionism that was taking place in Yugoslavia, which aimed at diminishing the Bulgarian cultural and historic heritage in Macedonia. In the 1970s, the Macedonian Tribune regularly printed articles and appeals by Mihailov. His memoirs (written in Bulgarian) were advertised by the paper and were avidly read.South Slavic Immigration in America. George J. Prpic, John Carroll University. Twayne Publishers. A division of G. K. Hall & Co., Boston, p. 249. His influence in the MPO was eventually diminished, when a younger generation of leaders, led by Ivan Lebamoff and Christo Nizamoff, confronted Mihailov's authoritarianism, and removed his supporters from leadership positions."Иван Михайлов – отвъд легендите, Том I". Гаджев, Иван. УИ „Св. Климент Охридски”, София, 2007. [Page 22]
Its main political slogan was the creation of a greater "free and independent Macedonia", under the protection of the United Nations. Over the years, a number of the Americans born of Macedonian Bulgarian descent began having less and less knowledge of Bulgaria and started identifying themselves often simply as Macedonians. In 1956, the MPO defined the terms "Macedonian" and "Macedonian immigrants" in its by-laws as applying equally to all nationalities in Macedonia - Bulgarians, Aromanians, Turks, Albanians and others. In the early 1960s, some MPO members switched to the organization United Macedonians and some started identifying themselves as Macedonians. In the late 1970s, MPO was present prominently among the diaspora organizations on which the institutions of Bulgaria relied for national propaganda. MPO accused the Bulgarian government of denying the "Macedonian-Bulgarian colonies in Bulgaria" their "civil rights" and "the free expression of their aspirations." In the 1990s, MPO began openly accepting and embracing the ethnic Macedonian identity, alongside the Macedono-Bulgarian identity of the organization's founders. Prior to Macedonian independence, the MPO advocated for a "Free and Independent Macedonia – a Switzerland of the Balkans," comprising Vardar, Aegean and Pirin Macedonia, where all ethnic groups would co-exist in peace.Matjaž Klemenčič, The Reactions of Immigrants from the South Slavic Lands and their Descendants in the USA to the Dissolution of Yugoslavia (1989–1993), Dve domovini (Two Homelands), 2011, pp. 44–47. On February 22, 1990, the Macedonian Tribune published an article by then President Ivan Lebamoff, where he stated that MPO is responding to change in Macedonia, throughout the world, and in the organization itself by recognizing the reality of ethnic Macedonians, and by inviting them to join the ranks of the MPO as equals."Tumbling Walls Revisited" by Ivan Lebamoff. Macedonian Tribune. February 22, 1990 [Page 3]
Post-Cold War period
Macedonia seceded from Yugoslavia on September 8, 1991, amending its constitutional name from Socialist Republic of Macedonia to Republic of Macedonia. Only days after the parliament of the Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia) declared its independence, a delegation of the MPO visited Washington, D.C., in an attempt to lobby with the US government to recognize the former as an independent state. The delegation was received by U.S. senators from Indiana - Dan Coats and Richard Lugar, as well as by members of the House of Representatives from Indiana. Throughout the 1990s, the MPO was lobbying for the recognition of Macedonia's independence.