Secret Macedonian Committee



The Macedonian Society or Secret Macedonian Committee (Таен македонски комитет; Тајни македонски комитет), was secret organization established in 1885 by Macedonian Slavs in Sofia, Bulgaria, to promote а Slav Macedonian identity, distinguished especially from the ethnic identity of the Bulgarians, the establishment of the Archbishopric of Ohrid separate from the Bulgarian Exarchate and the promotion of the Macedonian language. Its leaders were Naum Evrov, Kosta Grupčev, Vasilij Karajovev and Temko Popov.

In 1886 the Bulgarian government revealеd the organization and it was disbanded. Some of its leaders went in the same year back to Belgrade, where the Government of Serbia established a cooperation with that ephemeral Macedonian Society. Through support to the Macedonian movement the Government of Serbia had intention to suppress the process of Bulgarisation of Macedonian Christian Slavs or to debulgarize them. In accordance with the Serbo-Macedonian cooperation in the same year in Constantinople was founded the Association of Serbo-Macedonians. This compromise with the Serbian interests in Macedonia, led it later to abandonment of its separatist program altogether. As result, later its members promoted already only pro-Serbian ideas.