Ivan Vanča Mihajlov: makedonski revolucionar uskraćen za domovinu i korijene
Ivan Vanča Mihajlov: Macedonian Revolutionary without Homeland and Roots

Summary/Abstract: The friendship between Croatian nationalists and Macedonian emigrants dates from 1929. In that year, at the town of Banka by Sofia, the “Sofia Declaration” was signed by Croatian ustasha leaders Ante Pavelić and Gustav Perčec, and Georgij Kondov and Ivan Hadzev, members of the Macedonian National Committee for Emigrant Organizations. The signatories swore to “coordinate their legal activities to attain popular and national rights, political freedom, a full national sovereignty for Croatia and Macedonia.” At this time, Pavelić also met with Ivan Vančo Mihajlov in Sofia in order to establish cooperative ties between the Ustasa organization and the right wing of IMRO. In 1934 IMRO paid the price for improved relations between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, and Bulgaria turned its back on Mihajlov. He decided to promote the Macedonian idea in exile. As far as his political program is concerned, there is no doubt that in the middle of 1928 Mihajlov rejected the notion of “autonomy” for Macedonia in favour of full independence. But what is specific and original in his program is that his idea of Macedonian independence does not imply Macedonian ethnic character. His ideas were not acceptable to Bulgarian nationalists and, more importantly, it cost him the support of IMRO which he at first whole-heartedly enjoyed. Correspondence between the Bulgarian right-wing nationalist Asen Kantardzijev and Mihajlov from 1943 clearly reveals that Mihajlov can not become the leader of a Macedonian organization because he is deemed to have lost his Bulgarian outlook and point of origin. His decision not to return to Bulgaria in 1941 seems to prove that the rift between Mihajlov and Bulgarian political leaders was deep. The Ustasa government provided Mihajlov a safe haven in Zagreb between 1941-1944. He was in close contact with Pavelić and most likely had an influence on the latter’s politics.

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