In the earliest dated samples of statutes and regulations of the clandestine Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) discovered so far, it is called Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianopolitan Revolutionary Committees (BMARC)., Poulton, Hugh (2000). Who are the Macedonians, Indiana University Press, p. 53.Dimitar Bechev, Historical dictionary of North Macedonia, 2019; Rowman & Littlefield, , p. 11.Denis Š. Ljuljanović (2023) Imagining Macedonia in the Age of Empire. State Policies, Networks and Violence (1878–1912), LIT Verlag Münster; , p. 211. These documents refer to the then Bulgarian population in the Ottoman Empire, which was to be prepared for a general uprising in Macedonia and Adrianople regions, aiming to achieve political autonomy for them.Tunçay, Mete, and Erik J. Zürcher, eds. (1994) Socialism and Nationalism in the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. Bloomsbury Academic, , p. 33.MacDermott, Mercia (1978) Freedom or Death: The Life of Gotsé Delchev. West Nyack, N.Y.: Journeyman Press, pp. 144-149. In thе statute of BMARC, that itself is most probably the first one,Vladimir Cretulescu (2016) "The Memoirs of Cola Nicea: A Case-Study on the Discursive Identity Construction of the Aromanian Armatoles in Early 20th Century Macedonia." Res Historica 41, p. 128.Alexander Maxwell, "Slavic Macedonian Nationalism: From 'Regional' to 'Ethnic'", In Klaus Roth and Ulf Brunnbauer (eds.), Region, Regional Identity and Regionalism in Southeastern Europe, Volume 1 (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2008), , p. 135. the membership was reserved exclusively for Bulgarians.Victor Roudometof (2002) Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict. Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question. Bloomsbury Academic, , p. 112. This ethnic restriction matches with the memoirs of some founding and ordinary members, where is mentioned such a requirement, set only in the Organization's first statute.Alexis Heraclides, The Macedonian Question and the Macedonians: A History. Routledge, 2020, , p. 240.This formulation was understood then primarily as referring to the Bulgarian Exarchists, who in those conditions were synonymous with the name "Bulgarians". Apart from them, the Bulgarian Uniates from the Kukush region and the Bulgarian Protestants from the Razlog region were among the first to be drawn into the IMRO. Both, the former and the latter were distinguished by their Bulgarian national self-awareness. For more see: Дмитрий Олегович Лабаури (2008) Болгарское национальное движение в Македонии и Фракии в 1894-1908 гг. Идеология, программа, практика политическои борьбы. БАН, , стр. 137. In fact, the founders of IMRO were sympathetic to Bulgarian, but hostile to the Serbian nationalism,Gillies, Nolan, "Cutting the Gordian Knot: Macedonian Nationalism and Its Complicated Relationship with Bulgaria" (2024). Boise State University Theses and Dissertations. pp. 27-28. https://doi.org/10.18122/td.2236.boisestate which led them to establish in 1897 a Society against Serbs.Урош Шешум, „Друштво против Срба 1897–1902. Методи и мере бугарске дипломатије, Егзархије и Бугарско-македонско одринске револуционарне организације против ширења српског утицаја у Јужној Старој Србији и Македонији 1897–1902.“, Српске студије, књ. 4, (2013), с. 73–103. The organization's ethnic character is confirmed by the lack of any mention of Macedonian ethnicity,George C. Papavizas (2006) Claiming Macedonia: The Struggle for the Heritage, Territory and Name of the Historic Hellenic Land, 1862-2004. McFarland , McFarland Publishers, p. 42. and the incorporation of the Bulgarian Secret Revolutionary Brotherhood to IMRO in 1899.Тодор Радев, Към историята на Българското тайно революционно братство в Турция (1897–1899). сп. История, 2017 г. бр. 25 (3), „Аз-буки“, стр. 231-251. The name of BMARC, as well as information about its statute, was mentioned in the foreign press of that time, in Bulgarian diplomatic correspondence, and exists in the memories of some revolutionaries and contemporaries.Цочо Билярски, Още един път за първите устави и правилници и за името на ВМОРО преди Илинденско-Преображенското Въстание от 1903 г. В сборник Дойно Дойнов. 75 години наука, мъдрост и достойнство, събрани в един живот. ВСУ "Черноризец Храбър"; 2004, .
Due to the lack of original protocol documentation, and the fact its early organic statutes were not dated, the first statute of the Organisation is uncertain and is a subject to dispute among researchers. The dispute also includes its first name and ethnic character, as well as the authenticity, dating, validity, and authorship of its supposed first statute.Marinov, Tchavdar. We, the Macedonians: The Paths of Macedonian Supra-Nationalism (1878–1912) In: We, the People: Politics of National Peculiarity in Southeastern Europe. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2009, . pp. 114-115. The Organization was founded in Ottoman Thessaloniki at the end of 1893, and its founders - four teachers, a physician and a bookseller, considered themselves as part of the Bulgarian national movement. However, in North Macedonia, any Bulgarian influence on the country's history is a source of ongoing disputes and sharp tensions, thus such historical influences are often rejected by Macedonian researchers in principle. Certain contradictions and even mutually exclusive statements, along with inconsistencies exist in the testimonies of the founding and other early members of the Organization, which further complicates the solution of the problem. It is not yet clear whether the earliest statutory documents of the Organization have been discovered. Its earliest basic documents discovered for now, became known to the historical community during the early 1960s.
The revolutionary organization changed its name several times before adopting in 1919 in Sofia, Bulgaria its last and most common name i.e. Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO).Raymond Detrez, Historical Dictionary of Bulgaria; Historical Dictionaries of Europe; Rowman & Littlefield, 2014, , p. 253-254. The repeated changes of name of the IMRO has led to an ongoing debate between Bulgarian and Macedonian historians, as well as within the Macedonian historiographical community.Alexis Heraclides, The Macedonian Question and the Macedonians: A History. Routledge, 2020, , pp. 40-41. The crucial question is to which degree the Organization had a Bulgarian ethnic character and when it tried to open itself to the other Balkan nationalities.Vemund Aarbakke (2003) Ethnic rivalry and the quest for Macedonia, 1870-1913, East European Monographs, , p. 97. As a whole, its founders were inspired by the earlier Bulgarian revolutionary traditions.IMRO group modelled itself after the revolutionary organizations of Vasil Levski and other noted Bulgarian revolutionaries like Hristo Botev and Georgi Benkovski, each of whom was a leader during the earlier Bulgarian revolutionary movement. Around this time ca. 1894, a seal was struck for use by the Organization leadership; it was inscribed with the phrase "Freedom or Death" (Svoboda ili smart). For more see: Duncan M. Perry, The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian Liberation Movements, 1893–1903, Duke University Press, 1988, , pp. 39–40. Such activists believed that Slavic Macedonian society was reproducing the Bulgarian National Revival with a time lag.Bernard Lory, The Ottoman Legacy in the Balkans, In: Entangled Histories of the Balkans - Volume Three. Brill, 2015, , pp. 380–381. The situation was similar in Adrianople Thrace.Vemund Aarbakke, Urban Space and Bulgarian–Greek Antagonism in Thrace, 1870–1912, p. 32. In: Couroucli, M., & Marinov, T. (Eds.). (2015). Balkan Heritages: Negotiating History and Culture (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315562872 All its basic documents were written in the pre-1945 Bulgarian orthography.Bernard A. Cook ed., Europe Since 1945: An Encyclopedia, Volume 2, Taylor & Francis, 2001, , p. 808. The first statute of the IMRO was modelled after the statute of the earlier Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee (BRCC).As a corollary, the first charter of the organization was a rough copy of the "Bulgarian revolutionary central committee's" charter which they found in the work of Zahari Stoyanov, Zapiski po bûlgarskite vûstania ["Descriptions of the Bulgarian Uprising"]. For more see: Tetsuya Sahara, The Macedonian Origin of Black Hand. (International Conference "Great War, Serbia, Balkans and Great Powers") Strategic Research Institute & The Institute of History Belgrade, 2015, pp. 401–425 (408). IMRO adopted from BRCC also its symbol: the lion, and its motto: Svoboda ili smart.J. Pettifer as ed., The New Macedonian Question, Springer, 1999 , p. 236. All its six founders were closely related to the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki.Parvanova, Zorka. "6 Revolutionary and Paramilitary Networks in European Turkey: Ideological and Political Counteractions and Interactions (1878–1908)". Christian Networks in the Ottoman Empire: A Transnational History, edited by Eleonora Naxidou and Yura Konstantinova, Budapest, Hungary: Central European University Press, 2024, pp. 107-136. https://doi.org/10.1515/9789633867761-009 They were native to the region of Macedonia, and some of them were influenced from anarcho-socialist ideas, which gave to organisation's basic documents slightly leftist leaning.Frusetta, James. “Bulgaria's Macedonia: Nation-Building and State Building, Centralization and Autonomy in Pirin Macedonia, 1903-1952.” PhD Thesis. University of Maryland, College Park, (2006), p. 113.