Panko Brashnarov

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Panko Brashnarov (1883, Veles, Ottoman Empire - 1951, Goli Otok, Yugoslavia) was a revolutionary and member of the left wing of the Macedonian-Adrianople revolutionary movement (IMARO). As with many other IMARO members of the time, historians from the Republic of Macedonia consider him an ethnic Macedonian, whereas historians in Bulgaria consider him a Bulgarian.

He was born in Veles where he graduated from Bulgarian Exarchate's school. In 1903, he took part in the Ilinden Uprising. After that Brashnarov learned in Skopie's pedagogical school and worked as a Bulgarian teacher until the beginning of Balkan Wars. In this period he was also a member of the People's Federative Party (Bulgarian Section). In 1919, he joint the Yugoslav Communist Party. In 1925 in Vienna, Brashnarov was elected as one of the leaders of IMRO (United). Because of his political convictions, he was sentenced to seven years in prison in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. After his release he remained politically passive.

When Bulgaria annexed Vardar Banovina in 1941, he was one of the founders of the Bulgarian Action Committees.[1] ^[1]Until 1943, Brashnarov worked again as a Bulgarian teacher. Then he became politically active again and joined the Communist partizan's movement fighting against the Axis Powers. On 2 August, 1944, the Antifascist assembly of the national liberation of Macedonia took place at the St. Prohor Pčinjski monastery. Brashnarov served as the first speaker. The modern Macedonian state was officially proclaimed as a federal state within Tito's Yugoslavia, receiving recognition from the Allies.

From the start of the new Yugoslavia, the authorities organised frequent purges and trials of Macedonian communists and non-party people were charged with autonomist deviation. Many of the former left-wing IMRO government officials were purged from their positions, then isolated, arrested, imprisoned or executed on various (in many cases fabricated) charges including pro-Bulgarian leanings, demands for greater or complete independence of Yugoslav Macedonia, collaboration with the Cominform after the Tito-Stalin split in 1948, forming of conspirative political groups or organisations, demands for greater democracy and the like. In 1948, being fully disappointed by the policy of the authorities, Brashnarov complained of it in letters to Stalin and to Georgi Dimitrov. He did so together with Pavel Shatev. As a result, he was arrested in 1950 and imprisoned in Goli Otok labor camp where he died the following year.

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• Веселин Ангелов,"Македонският въпрос в българо-югославските отношения (1944-1952)", УИ "Св. Климент Охридски", София 2005, стр. 437-444 (Bulgarian)
• Speech on United Macedonia and the army of the Macedonians "the struggle of the Ilinden combatants with that one of the young Macedonian Army... for an ideal achievement - liberated and united Macedonia”[2]