by immigrant volunteers. The abbreviation MOBNO is readable on it (Macedonian-Adrianopolitan Bulgarian People's Organization).
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". 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. 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.
Foundation and ideology The organization was formed in 1922. 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 name selected for the organization was the "Macedonian Political Organization" which remained its name until 1952. Its adopted slogan was '
Macedonia for the Macedonians'. Throughout the next several annual conventions, the delegates finalized the organization's by-laws.
Early activism advocating for an autonomous Macedonia, 1922 in the 1937
Labor Day Parade in Indianapolis, Indiana 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. 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. 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. Through its newspaper
Macedonian Tribune, the MPO criticized
SFR Yugoslavia and
PR Bulgaria, as well as Greece's anti-Slav Macedonian policies. 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. 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. to a petition sent by the 32nd Annual MPO convention. Its main political slogan was the creation of a greater "free and independent Macedonia", under the protection of the
United Nations. 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.
Post-Cold War period 's official greeting letter to the 76th annual MPO Convention. 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. In September 1992, the MPO organized the "Forum on Macedonian Unity", which brought together the leaders of the MPO, the United Macedonians of
Toronto and the representatives from the
VMRO-DPMNE. The delegates agreed on a common goal – a free and independent Macedonia, and the result of the forum was a resolution in which they demanded the international recognition of the country. Banner", the most prestigious award presented by the Macedonian Patriotic Organization. Throughout 1992, the
Greek diaspora in the United States and Canada demonstrated against the recognition of the independence of Republic of Macedonia, above all against the name of the new state containing the word "Macedonia." They claimed that Macedonia was an
ancient Greek name and that the newly declared independent state was stealing this name from them. The
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America also demanded that the Republic of Macedonia's independence not be recognized by the United States. In reaction to this, Lebamoff sent protest letters against this position to the patriarchs and bishops of
Eastern Orthodox Churches worldwide as well as to numerous newspapers. As a result of MPO's activism, in addition to political activities by officials from the Republic of Macedonia, the country was admitted to the UN. In 1994, members of the MPO Central Committee visited Washington, D.C., several times to promote Macedonian American interests. It was the only promiment political organization at the time to promote their interests. In an unofficial interview for a Macedonian newspaper in 2005, former MPO President George Lebamoff stated: "The MPO believes that the Macedonian state neither has enough democracy, nor does it have enough forms to demonstrate that democracy. There is no vision for democratic trends in the future. The lack of democracy and vision could be the gravedigger for the Macedonian state." In 2023, the MPO made a change to its Constitution, explicitly stating in the preamble that the organization was created by Macedonian Bulgarians in 1922. Another important change was the abolition of the list of nationalities accepted as Macedonians (Bulgarians, Vlachs, Albanians, Turks, Greeks, etc.) and the acceptance that a Macedonian is any person of Macedonian origin, regardless of ethnicity. This change opened the possibility for the citizens of North Macedonia to become members of the MPO. ==Gallery==