Gotse Delchev

Georgi Nikolov Delchev (Bulgarian: Георги Николов Делчев; Macedonian: Ѓорѓи Николов Делчев; 4 February 1872 – 4 May 1903), known as Gotse Delchev or Goce Delčev (Гоце Делчев), was an important Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary (komitadji), active in the Ottoman-ruled Macedonia and Adrianople regions at the turn of the 20th century. He was the most prominent leader of what is known today as the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), a secret revolutionary society that was active in Ottoman territories in the Balkans at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Delchev was its representative in Sofia, the capital of the Principality of Bulgaria. As such, he was also a member of the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee (SMAC), participating in the work of its governing body. He was killed in a skirmish with an Ottoman unit on the eve of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie uprising.

Born into a Bulgarian family in Kilkis, then in the Salonika vilayet of the Ottoman Empire, in his youth he was inspired by the ideals of earlier Bulgarian revolutionaries such as Vasil Levski and Hristo Botev, who envisioned the creation of a Bulgarian republic of ethnic and religious equality, as part of an imagined Balkan Federation. Delchev completed his secondary education in the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki and entered the Military School of His Princely Highness in Sofia, but he was dismissed from there, only a month before his graduation, because of his leftist political persuasions. Then he returned to Ottoman Macedonia as a Bulgarian teacher, and immediately became an activist of the newly-found revolutionary movement in 1894.

Although considering himself to be an inheritor of the Bulgarian revolutionary traditions, he opted for Macedonian autonomy. Also for him, like for many Macedonian Bulgarians, originating from an area with mixed population, the idea of being ‘Macedonian’ acquired the importance of a certain native loyalty, that constructed a specific spirit of "local patriotism" and "multi-ethnic regionalism". He maintained the slogan promoted by William Ewart Gladstone, "Macedonia for the Macedonians", including all different nationalities inhabiting the area. In this way, his outlook included a wide range of such disparate ideas like Bulgarian patriotism, Macedonian regionalism, anti-nationalism, and incipient socialism. As a result, his political agenda became the establishment through revolution of an autonomous Macedono-Adrianople supranational state into the framework of the Ottoman Empire, as a prelude to its incorporation within a future Balkan Federation. Despite having been educated in the spirit of Bulgarian nationalism, he revised the Organization's statute, where the membership was allowed only for Bulgarians. In this way he emphasized the importance of cooperation among all ethnic groups in the territories concerned in order to obtain political autonomy.

Today Gotse Delchev is considered a national hero in Bulgaria and North Macedonia. Because his autonomist ideas have stimulated the subsequent development of Macedonian nationalism, in the latter it is claimed he was an ethnic Macedonian revolutionary. Thus, Delchev's legacy remains disputed between both countries. Nevertheless, some researchers think, that behind IMRO's idea of autonomy was hidden a reserve plan for eventual incorporation into Bulgaria. Per some of his contemporaries and some Bulgarian sources, Delchev supported Macedonia's incorporation into Bulgaria too. However, other researchers find the identity of Delchev and other IMRO figures to be "open to different interpretations", that are incompatible with the views of modern Balkan nationalisms.

Early life
He was born to a large family on 4 February 1872 (23 January according to the Julian calendar) in Kılkış (Kukush), then in the Ottoman Empire (today in Greece). By the mid-19th century, Kılkış was populated predominantly with Macedonian Bulgarians  and became one of the centres of the Bulgarian national revival. During the 1860s and 1870s it was under the jurisdiction of the Bulgarian Uniate Church, but after 1884 most of its population gradually joined the Bulgarian Exarchate. As a student, Delchev studied first at the Bulgarian Uniate primary school and then at the Bulgarian Exarchate junior high school. He also read widely in the town's chitalishte (community cultural center), where he was impressed with revolutionary books, and was especially imbued with thoughts of the liberation of Bulgaria. In 1888 his family sent him to the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki, where he organized and led a secret revolutionary brotherhood. Delchev also distributed revolutionary literature, which he acquired from the school's graduates who studied in Bulgaria. Graduation from high school was faced with few career prospects and Delchev decided to follow the path of his former schoolmate Boris Sarafov, entering the military school in Sofia in 1891. He at first encountered the newly independent Bulgaria full of idealism and dedication, but he later became disappointed with the commercialized life of the society and with the authoritarian politics of the prime minister Stefan Stambolov, accused of being a dictator.

Delchev spent his leaves in the company of emigrants from Macedonia. Most of them belonged to the Young Macedonian Literary Society. One of his friends was Vasil Glavinov, a leader of the Macedonian-Adrianople faction of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers Party. Through Glavinov and his comrades, he came into contact with different people, who offered a new form of social struggle. In June 1892, Delchev and the journalist Kosta Shahov, a chairman of the Young Macedonian Literary Society, met in Sofia with the bookseller from Thessaloniki, Ivan Hadzhinikolov. Hadzhinikolov disclosed at this meeting his plans to create a revolutionary organization in Ottoman Macedonia. They discussed together its basic principles and agreed fully on all scores. Delchev explained, he had no intention of remaining an officer and promised after graduating from the Military School, he would return to Macedonia to join the organization. In September 1894, only a month before graduation, he was expelled because of his political activity as a member of an illegal socialist circle. He was given the possibility to enter the Army again by re-applying for a commission, but he refused. Afterwards he returned to European Turkey to work there as a Bulgarian teacher, aiming to get involved in the new liberation movement. At that time, the revolutionary organization commonly known as Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) was in its early stages of development, forming its committees around the Bulgarian Exarchate schools.

Teacher and revolutionary
In Ottoman Thessaloniki, IMRO was founded in 1893, by a small band of anti-Ottoman Macedono-Bulgarian revolutionaries, including Hadzhinikolov. The first name of the organization is disputed, but among its early names were Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees (BMARC) and Secret Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (SMARO). It was decided at a meeting in Resen in August 1894 to preferably recruit teachers from the Bulgarian schools as committee members. In the autumn of 1894 Delchev became a teacher in an Exarchate school in Štip, where he met another teacher, Dame Gruev, who was also a leader of the newly established local committee of the IMRO. As a result of the close friendship between the two, Delchev joined the organization immediately and gradually became one of its main leaders. After this, both he and Gruev worked together in Štip and its environs. The expansion of the IMRO at the time was considerable, particularly after Gruev settled in Thessaloniki during the years 1895–1897, in the quality of a Bulgarian school inspector. Under his direction, Delchev travelled during the vacations throughout Macedonia and established and organized committees in villages and cities. Delchev also established contacts with some of the leaders of the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee (SMAC). Its official declaration was a struggle for the autonomy of Macedonia and Thrace. However, as a rule, most of SMAC's leaders were officers with stronger connections with the governments, waging terrorist struggle against the Ottomans in the hope of provoking a war and thus Bulgarian annexation of both areas. In the late 1895 he arrived illegally in Bulgaria's capital and tried to get support from the SMAC's leadership from the name of the "Bulgarian Central Macedonian-Adrianopolitan Revolutionary Committee". Delchev had a number of meetings with Danail Nikolaev, Yosif Kovachev, Toma Karayovov, Andrey Lyapchev and others, but he was often frustrated by their views. As a whole, Delchev had a negative attitude towards their activities. After spending the next school year (1895/1896) as a teacher in the town of Bansko, in May 1896 he was arrested by the Ottoman authorities as a person suspected of revolutionary activity and spent about a month in jail. Later Delchev participated in the Thessaloniki Congress of the IMRO in the Summer. Afterwards, Delchev gave his resignation as a teacher and, in the Autumn of 1896, he moved back to Bulgaria, where he, together with Gyorche Petrov, served as foreign representatives of the organization in Sofia. At that time the organization was largely dependent on the Bulgarian state and army assistance, that was mediated by the foreign representatives.

Revolutionary activity as part of the leadership of the Organization
In the period 1897–1902, he was a representative of the Foreign Committee of the IMRO in Sofia. Again in Sofia, negotiating with suspicious politicians and arms merchants, Delchev saw more of the unpleasant face of the Principality and became even more disillusioned with its political system. In 1897 he, along with Petrov, wrote the new organization's statute, which divided Macedonia and Adrianople areas into seven regions, each with a regional structure and secret police, following the Internal Revolutionary Organization's example. Below the regional committees were districts. The Central Committee was placed in Thessaloniki. In 1898 the Organization decided to create permanent acting armed bands (chetas) in every district, with Delchev as their leader. Delchev ensured the functioning of the underground border crossings of the organization and the arms depots added to them, alongside the then Bulgarian-Ottoman border.

His correspondence with other IMRO members covers extensive data on supplies, transport and storage of weapons and ammunition in Macedonia. Delchev envisioned independent production of weapons and traveled in 1897 to Odessa, where he met with Armenian revolutionaries Stepan Zorian and Christapor Mikaelian to exchange terrorist skills and especially bomb-making. That resulted in the establishment of a bomb manufacturing plant in the village of Sabler near Kyustendil in Bulgaria. The bombs were later smuggled across the Ottoman border into Macedonia. He was the first to organize and lead a band into Macedonia with the purpose of robbing or kidnapping rich Turks. His experiences demonstrate the weaknesses and difficulties which the Organization faced in its early years. Later he was one of the organizers of the Miss Stone Affair. In the winter of 1900, he resided for a while in Burgas, where Delchev organized another bomb manufacturing plant, which dynamite was used later by the Thessaloniki bombings. In 1900 he inspected also IMRO's detachments in Eastern Thrace again, aiming for better coordination between Macedonian and Thracian revolutionary committees. After the assassination in July of the Romanian newspaper editor Ștefan Mihăileanu, who had published unflattering remarks about the Macedonian affairs, Bulgaria and Romania were brought to the brink of war. At that time Delchev was preparing to organize a detachment which, in a possible war to support the Bulgarian army by its actions in Northern Dobruja, where a compact Bulgarian population was available. From the Autumn of 1901 till the early Spring of 1902, he made an important inspection in Macedonia, touring all revolutionary districts there. He also led the congress of the Adrianople revolutionary district held in Plovdiv in April 1902. Afterwards Delchev inspected the IMRO's structures in the Central Rhodopes. The inclusion of the rural areas into the organizational districts contributed to the expansion of the organization and the increase in its membership, while providing the essential prerequisites for the formation of the military power of the organization, at the same time having Delchev as its military advisor (inspector) and chief of all internal revolutionary bands. After 1897 there was a rapid growth of secret officers' brotherhoods, whose members by 1900 numbered about a thousand. Much of the brotherhoods' activists were involved in the revolutionary activity of the IMRO. He was among the main supporters of their activities. Delchev aimed also for better coordination between IMRO and the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee. For a short time in the late 1890s lieutenant Boris Sarafov, who was a former schoolmate of Delchev became its leader. During that period the foreign representatives Delchev and Petrov became by rights members of the leadership of the Supreme Committee and so the IMRO even managed to gain de facto control of the SMAC. Nevertheless, it soon split into two factions: one loyal to the IMRO and one led by some officers close to the Bulgarian prince. Delchev opposed these officers' insistent attempts to gain control over the activity of the IMRO. Sometimes SMAC even clashed militarily with local SMARO bands as in the autumn of 1902. Then the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee organized a failed uprising in Pirin Macedonia (Gorna Dzhumaya), which merely served to provoke Ottoman repressions and hampered the work of the underground network of SMARO.

The primary question regarding the timing of the uprising in Macedonia and Thrace implicated an apparent discordance not only among the SMAC and the SMARO, but also among the SMARO's leadership. At the Thessaloniki Congress of January 1903, where Delchev did not participate, an early uprising was debated and it was decided to stage one in the Spring of 1903. This led to fierce debates among the representatives at the Sofia SMARO's Conference in March 1903. By that time two strong tendencies had crystallized within the SMARO. The right-wing majority was convinced that if the Organization would unleash a general uprising, Bulgaria would be provoked to declare war on the Ottomans and after the subsequent intervention of the Great Powers the Empire would collapse. Delchev also launched the establishment of a secret revolutionary network, that would prepare the population for an armed uprising against the Ottoman rule. Delchev, who was under the influence of the leading Bulgarian anarchists like Mihail Gerdzhikov and Varban Kilifarski personally opposed the IMRO Central Committee's plan for a mass uprising in the summer of 1903, instead supporting terrorist tactics and guerilla tactics such as the Thessaloniki bombings of 1903. Finally, he had no choice but to agree to that course of action, at least managing to delay its start from May to August. Delchev also convinced the SMARO leadership to transform its idea of a mass rising involving the civil population into a rising based on guerrilla warfare. Towards the end of March 1903, Delchev with his detachment destroyed the railway bridge over the Angista river, aiming to test the new guerrilla tactics. Following that he set out for Thessaloniki to meet with Dame Gruev after his release from prison in March 1903. Delchev met with Gruev in late April and they discussed the decision of starting the uprising. After the meeting, he left for Serres, with the intention of holding a regional congress to lay out his plans for the uprising.

Death and aftermath
On 28 April, members of the Gemidzii circle started terrorist attacks in Thessaloniki. As a consequence martial law was declared in the city and many Turkish soldiers and "bashibozouks" were concentrated in the Salonika vilayet. This increased tension led eventually to the tracking of Delchev's cheta and his subsequent death. He was killed on 4 May 1903, in a skirmish with the Turkish police in the village of Banitsa, probably after betrayal by local villagers, as rumors asserted, while preparing the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising. Thus the liberation movement lost its most important organizer, on the eve of the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising. After being identified by the local authorities in Serres, the bodies of Delchev and his comrade, Dimitar Gushtanov, were buried in a common grave in Banitsa. Following the skirmish, more than 500 arrests were made in various districts of Serres and 1,700 households petitioned to return to the Patriarchate. Soon afterwards SMARO, aided by SMAC organized the uprising against the Ottomans, which after initial successes, was crushed with much loss of life. Two of his brothers, Mitso Delchev and Milan Delchev were also killed fighting against the Ottomans as militants in the SMARO chetas of the Bulgarian voivodas Hristo Chernopeev and Krstjo Asenov in 1901 and 1903, respectively. The Bulgarian government later granted a pension to their father Nikola Delchev, because of the contribution of his sons to the freedom of Macedonia. During the Second Balkan War of 1913, Kilkis, which had been annexed by Bulgaria in the First Balkan War, was taken by the Greeks. Virtually all of its pre-war 7,000 Bulgarian inhabitants, including Delchev's family, were expelled to Bulgaria by the Greek Army. During Balkan Wars, when Bulgaria was temporarily in control of the area, Delchev's remains were transferred to Xanthi, then in Bulgaria. After Western Thrace was ceded to Greece in 1919, the relic was brought to Plovdiv and in 1923 to Sofia, where it rested until after World War II. During World War II, the area was taken by the Bulgarians again and Delchev's grave near Banitsa was restored. In May 1943, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of his death, a memorial plaque was set in Banitsa, in the presence of his sisters and other public figures. Until the end of WWII Delchev was considered one of the greatest Bulgarians in the region of Macedonia.

The first biographical book about Delchev was issued in 1904 by his friend and comrade in arms, the Bulgarian poet Peyo Yavorov. The most detailed biography of Delchev in English was written by English historian Mercia MacDermott: Freedom or Death: The Life of Gotse Delchev.

Views
The international, cosmopolitan views of Delchev could be summarized in his proverbial sentence: "I understand the world solely as a field for cultural competition among the peoples". In the late 19th century the anarchists and socialists from Bulgaria linked their struggle closely with the revolutionary movements in Macedonia and Thrace. Thus, as a young cadet in Sofia Delchev became a member of a left-wing circle, where he was strongly influenced by the modern Marxist and Bakunin's ideas. His views were formed also under the influence of the ideas of earlier anti-Ottoman fighters as Levski, Botev, and Stoyanov, who were among the founders of the Bulgarian Internal Revolutionary Organization, the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee and the Bulgarian Secret Central Revolutionary Committee, respectively. Later he participated in the Internal organization's struggle as a well-educated leader. According to Mercia MacDermott, he was the co-author of BMARC's statute. Developing his ideas further in 1902 he took the step, together with other left-wing functionaries, of changing its nationalistic character, which determined that members of the organization could be only Bulgarians. The new supra-nationalistic statute renamed it to Secret Macedono-Adrianopolitan Revolutionary Organization (SMARO), which was to be an insurgent organization, open to all Macedonians and Thracians regardless of nationality, who wished to participate in the movement for their autonomy. This scenario was partially facilitated by the Treaty of Berlin (1878), according to which Macedonia and Adrianople areas were given back from Bulgaria to the Ottomans, but especially by its unrealized 23rd. article, which promised future autonomy for unspecified territories in European Turkey, settled with Christian population. His main goal, along with the other revolutionaries, was the implementation of Article 23 of the treaty, aimed at acquiring full autonomy of Macedonia and the Adrianople. Delchev, like other left-wing activists, vaguely determined the bonds in the future common Macedonian-Adrianople autonomous region on the one hand, and on the other between it, the Principality of Bulgaria, and de facto annexed Eastern Rumelia. Even the possibility that Bulgaria could be absorbed into a future autonomous Macedonia, rather than the reverse, was discussed. Per some Bulgarian sources and his contemporaries, Delchev supported Macedonia's eventual incorporation into Bulgaria, Yordan Badev recalls in his memoirs that Gotse Delchev, Boris Sarafov, Efrem Chuchkov, and Boris Drangov had organized a group of Bulgarians born in Macedonia to propagate for the future unification of Macedonia and Bulgaria among the cadets of the military school in Sofia. For more see: Katrin Bozeva-Abazi, The Shaping of Bulgarian and Serbian National Identities, 1800s-1900s, thesis, McGill University Department of History, 2003, p. 189; Kosta Tsipushev recalls how, when he and some friends asked Gotsé why they were fighting for the autonomy of Macedonia and Thrace instead of their liberation and reunification with the motherland, he replied: ''Comrades, can't you see that we are now the slaves not of the Turkish state, which is in the process of disintegration, but of the Great Powers in Europe, before whom Turkey signed her total capitulation in Berlin. That is why we have to struggle for the autonomy of Macedonia and Thrace, in order to preserve them in their entirety, as a stage towards their reunification with our common Bulgarian fatherland...'' For more see: (MacDermott 1978:322); Pavlos Kyrou (Pavel Kirov) from Zhelevo claims in his memoirs that once, when Delchev came from Bulgaria, he met him in Konomladi. Delchev insisted there that Greek priests and schoolmasters are obstacles. He maintained also that all the local Slavophones are Bulgarians and they must work for Bulgarian cause, because its army will come and help them to throw off the Turkish yoke. For more see: Allen Upward, The East End of Europe, 1908: The Report of an Unofficial Mission to the European Provinces of Turkey on the Eve of the Revolution (Classic Reprint), BiblioBazaar, 2015, ISBN 1340987104, p. 326; In the memories of Andon Kyoseto, it is alleged that Delchev explained him that SMARO cannot win full freedom for Macedonia, but it will fight at least for autonomy. The ultimate goal of the Organization, according to Delchev, is a secrecy, but one day, sooner or later, Macedonia will unite itself with Bulgaria, and Greece and Serbia should not doubt in that. For more see: Б. Мирчев, Из спомените на Андон Лазов - Кьосето, сп. Родина, г. VІ, бр. 1, октомври 1931, стр. 12-14.; On 12 January 1903 his fellow Peyo Yavorov recorded one of Delchev's last messages in his shorthand notes, when they crossеd the misty border of Bulgaria to the Ottoman Empire entering Macedonia, namely: "I pointed out the misty area on Delchev, who was close to me and I said: Look, Macedonia welcomes us mourning!" But he answered: “We will tear away this veil and the sun of freedom will arise, but it will be a Bulgarian sun”. For more see: Милкана Бошнакова, Личните бележници на П. К. Яворов, Издателство: Захарий Стоянов, ISBN 9789540901374, 2008. or its inclusion into a future Balkan Confederative Republic. According to American historian Dennis P. Hupchick, he firmly opposed Macedonia's incorporation into Bulgaria. Despite his Bulgarian loyalty, he was against any chauvinistic propaganda and nationalism. For militants such as Delchev and other leftists that participated in the national movement retaining a political outlook, national liberation meant "radical political liberation through shaking off the social shackles". According to him, no outside force could or would help the Organization and it ought to rely only upon itself and only upon its own will and strength. He thought that any intervention by Bulgaria would provoke intervention by the neighboring states as well, and could result in Macedonia and Thrace being torn apart. That is why the peoples of these two regions had to win their own freedom, within the frontiers of an autonomous Macedonian-Adrianople state.

Cold war period
In 1934 the Comintern gave its support to the idea that the Macedonian Slavs constituted a separate nation. Prior to World War II, this view on the Macedonian issue had been of little practical importance. However, during the war these ideas were supported by the pro-Yugoslav Macedonian communist partisans, who strengthened their positions in 1943, referring to the ideals of Gotse Delchev. After the Red Army entered the Balkans in late 1944, new communist regimes came into power in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. In this way their policy on the Macedonian Question was committed to the Comintern policy of supporting the development of a distinct ethnic Macedonian consciousness. The region of Macedonia was proclaimed as the connecting link for the establishment of a future Balkan Communist Federation. The newly established Yugoslav People's Republic of Macedonia, was characterized as the natural result of Delchev's aspirations for autonomous Macedonia.

Initially, the Macedonian communists questioned the extent of Delchev's alleged Macedonian national consciousness. Macedonian communist leader Lazar Koliševski proclaimed him as "...one Bulgarian of no significance for the liberation struggles...". In 1946, Vasil Ivanovski acknowledged that Delchev did not have a clear view of "a Macedonian national character", but stated that his struggle made the free and autonomous Macedonia a possibility. On 7 October 1946, under pressure from Moscow, as part of the policy to foster the development of Macedonian national consciousness, Delchev's remains were transported to Skopje. On 10 October, the bones were enshrined in a marble sarcophagus in the yard of the church "Sveti Spas", where they have remained since. Delchev's name became part of the anthem of SR Macedonia - Today over Macedonia. According to Mishe Karev, a nephew of Nikola Karev, after the Tito–Stalin split in 1948, the Macedonian communist elite discussed the idea of scrapping Delchev's name from the anthem of the country and proclaiming him a Bulgarian, but this idea was declined.

After realizing that the Balkan collective memory had already accepted the heroes of the Macedonian revolutionary movement as Bulgarians, Macedonian authorities exerted efforts to claim Delchev for the Macedonian national cause. Aiming to enforce the belief that Delchev was an ethnic Macedonian, all documents written by him in standard Bulgarian were translated into standard Macedonian, and presented as originals. As a result, Delchev was declared an ethnic Macedonian hero and Macedonian school textbooks began even to hint at Bulgarian complicity in his death. In the People's Republic of Bulgaria, before 1960, Delchev was given mostly regional recognition in Pirin Macedonia. Afterwards, orders from the highest political level were given to reincorporate the Macedonian revolutionary movement as part of the Bulgarian historiography and to prove the Bulgarian credentials of its historical leaders. Since 1960, there have been long unproductive debates between the ruling Communist parties in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia about the ethnic affiliation of Delchev. Delchev was described in SR Macedonia not only as an anti-Ottoman freedom fighter, but also as a hero, who had opposed the aggressive aspirations of the pro-Bulgarian factions in the liberation movement. The claims on Delchev's Bulgarian self-identification, thus were portrayed as a recent Bulgarian chauvinist attitude of long provenance. Nonetheless, the Bulgarian side made in 1978 for the first time the proposal that some historical personalities (e.g. Gotse Delchev) could be regarded as belonging to the shared historical heritage of the two peoples, but that proposal did not appeal to the Yugoslavs.

Post-communism
Delchev is today regarded both in Bulgaria and North Macedonia as an important national hero, and both nations see him as part of their own national history. His ethnic identity has continued to be disputed in North Macedonia, serving as a point of contention with Bulgaria. Some attempts were made for the joint celebration of Delchev between both countries. Bulgarian diplomats were also attacked when honoring Delchev by Macedonian nationalists. However, on 2 August 2017, the Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and his Macedonian colleague Zoran Zaev placed wreaths at the grave of Gotse Delchev on the occasion of the 114th anniversary of the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising. The Macedonian side has recently been interested to negotiate about Delchev. A joint commission on historical issues was also formed in 2018 to resolve controversial historical readings, including the dispute about Delchev's ethnic identity, which remains unresolved. The Association of Historians in North Macedonia came out against the calls for a joint celebration of Delchev, seeing them as a threat to Macedonian national identity. Macedonian historians insist that the myth of Delchev there is so significant that it is more important than all of the historical research and documents, and therefore his Bulgarian self-identification should not be discussed.

His memory is honored especially in the Bulgarian part of Macedonia and among the descendants of Bulgarian refugees from other parts of the region, where he is regarded as the most important revolutionary from the second generation of freedom fighters. His name appears also in the national anthem of North Macedonia: "Denes nad Makedonija" (Today over Macedonia). There are two towns named in his honor: Gotse Delchev in Bulgaria and Delčevo in North Macedonia. There are also two peaks named after Delchev: Gotsev Vrah, the summit of Slavyanka Mountain, and Delchev Vrah or Delchev Peak on Livingston Island, South Shetland Islands in Antarctica, which was named after him by the scientists from the Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition. The Goce Delčev University of Štip in North Macedonia carries his name too. Today many artifacts related to Delchev's activity are stored in different museums across Bulgaria and North Macedonia.

During the time of SFR Yugoslavia, a street in Belgrade was named after Delchev. In 2015, Serbian nationalists covered the signs with the street's name and affixed new ones with the name of the Chetniks' activist Kosta Pećanac. They claimed that Delchev was a Bulgarian and his name has no place there. Though in 2016 the street's name was changed officially by the municipal authorities to "Maršal Tolbuhin". Their motivation was that Delchev was not an ethnic Macedonian revolutionary, but a leader of an anti-Serbian organization with a pro-Bulgarian orientation.

In Greece the official appeals from the Bulgarian side to the authorities to install a memorial plaque on his place of death are not answered. The memorial plaques set periodically by Bulgarians afterwards are removed. Bulgarian tourists are restrained occasionally to visit the place.

On February 4, 2023, on the 151st anniversary of the birth of the revolutionary, both the Macedonian and Bulgarian side paid their respects at the St. Spas Church in Skopje separately, while the delegation of North Macedonia declined the offer to jointly lay wreaths proposed by the Bulgarian delegation. Many Bulgarian citizens who wanted to attend the event were held for hours at the border due to a malfunction of the border system. However, problems with the admission of the Bulgarians continued even after the processing of their documents. As a result, many Bulgarian citizens and journalists were prevented from crossing. Three citizens were detained, fined and banned from entering the country for 3 years, due to attempting to physically assault policemen. According to their lawyer, two of them were apparently beaten. Bulgaria officially reacted sharply to these events.