Mencha Karnicheva
Melpomena Dimitrova Karnicheva (Bulgarian: Мелпомена Димитрова Кърничева; Macedonian: Мелпомена Димитрова Крничева; 16 March 1900 – 1964), commonly known as Mencha Karnicheva, was a revolutionary of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO). The wife of IMRO leader Ivan Mihaylov, she is known for assassinating IMRO left-wing activist Todor Panitsa.
Life
[edit | edit source]Karnicheva was born on 16 March 1900 in Kruševo in Ottoman-ruled Macedonia (today in North Macedonia) to a mixed Aromanian family.[1][2][3] Her grandmother was of Bulgarian and Aromanian ancestry, while her great-grandfather was a Bulgarian priest, who got killed by the Turks.[4] During the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising in 1903, Ottoman troops sacked her birthplace,[5] she and her family moved to Sofia, Bulgaria, after the uprising. There she became involved with the Macedonian revolutionary movement.[2] On 2 September 1918, she went to study in Munich, but returned to Bulgaria after the end of World War I.[6]
Karnicheva was briefly part of IMRO's federalist leader Todor Panitsa's circle,[2] but disagreed with his political views.[6] She joined IMRO on 15 March 1924.[2][6] On 8 May 1925, she assassinated Panitsa in Vienna's Burgtheater.[2][7][8] Per Mihaylov, the assassination was widely publicized in the international press.[6] She was tried and sentenced to eight years in prison, but due to her bad health, her sentence was terminated by an Austrian court and she returned to Bulgaria.[2][9] In Bulgaria, she was welcomed as a hero upon her return.[5] On 25 December 1926, she married Mihaylov, who was then a leader of IMRO.[6] Along with Mara Buneva, she was also celebrated as a hero by IMRO's circles in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and the Macedonian emigration.[1] After the disbandment of IMRO in 1934, she lived with Mihaylov in exile in Turkey, Poland, Hungary, Croatia and etc,[2][9] until her death in Rome, Italy, in 1964.[5]
She was not part of Bulgarian national martyrology until the end of the Bulgarian communist regime. Bulgarian nationalists and the Bulgarian public celebrate her as a patriot. A female association of VMRO-BND was named after her, along with a street in Blagoevgrad.[1]
References
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External links
[edit | edit source]- Error creating thumbnail: File missing Media related to Lua error in Module:Commons_link at line 62: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). at Wikimedia Commons
- Mencha Karnicheva — Why did I kill Todor Panitsa? (in Bulgarian)
- 1900 births
- 1964 deaths
- People from Kruševo
- Aromanians from the Ottoman Empire
- Bulgarian people of Aromanian descent
- Aromanian revolutionaries
- Bulgarian revolutionaries
- Bulgarian people convicted of murder
- Members of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization
- Bulgarian emigrants to Italy
- Bulgarian nationalist assassins
- People convicted of murder by Austria