August 19, 1903. The Transfiguration Uprising broke out in Odrinsko.
The beginning of the insurgent actions in the Bitola District gave impetus to the revolutionary movement in Odrin Thrace as well. In accordance with the decisions of the Thessaloniki Congress to declare a mass uprising in the Strandzha region, the Petrova Niva Congress was convened, which drew up a plan for the actions and elected a general staff composed of: Mikhail Gerdzhikov, Lazar Madzharov and Stamat Ikonomov. On August 6 (19 in the old style, when it was the Transfiguration), hostilities began, the Strandzha Republic was announced. Tsarevo, Ahtopol and other smaller settlements in Strandzha were liberated, and the Turkish units were pushed to Malko Tarnovo and Lozengrad.
Between August 2 and October 23, 150 battles took place in Bitola District, in which 746 Chetniks died, in Thessaloniki - 38 battles and 109 Chetniks killed, in Skopje - 15 battles and 93 killed, and in Odra Revolutionary District 36 battles, 56 Chetniks killed and hundreds of civilians. On September 12, 1903, the General Staff of the Bitola Revolutionary District issued a district letter for the cessation of insurgent actions and the self-dissolution of the headquarters.
In Western Thrace, after the Rhodope Congress of VMORO held there, the insurgent actions have a Chetnik character. At the beginning of August 1903, Peyu Shishmanov's squad attacked the customs office in Karakulas. At the same time, Marin Cholakov's squad planted dynamite on the railway line between Gyumurjina and Demirbeyli, but the explosion was neutralized by the authorities.
On August 18, Nedelcho Kilev's squad, after the train had passed, blew up the Dedeagach-Gyumurjina railway line between the villages of Chobankoy and Kosemedjit, and traffic stopped for a long time. Tanyu Nikolov's squad and separately Kosta Nunkov's squad mine the same and other railway lines, but the explosions fail. After the attack on August 18, 1903, the Chobankoi affair broke out.
The Turkish military undertook intensive searches in the nearby Bulgarian villages, 33 people were arrested and sent to Edirne for a military court. Four were sentenced to death by hanging, and the rest to 15 years of exile. Many perpetrators save themselves by fleeing to Bulgaria.
The actions created a strong tension among the Turkish authorities and additional military units were concentrated in all larger settlements. Thus, about 10,000 soldiers were pinned down in Xanthi-Akhelebiy-Dedeagachko, which could not be thrown against the rest of the insurgent Bulgarian regions. This practically ends the insurgent actions.
The Strandzhan Republic, also known as the Strandzhan Commune, is the name of the government formed by the insurgents of the Internal Macedonian-Odrina Revolutionary Organization in the area between Malko Tarnovo and Tsarevo during the Ilinden-Preobrazhen-Krastovden uprising in the summer of 1903.
The commune lasted a little more than 20 days in a part of the territory held by the insurgents. Its functioning and organization are conditioned by the anarchist views of part of the leadership of the Edirne Revolutionary District, and especially of Mikhail Gerdzhikov.
The new social order, the essential feature of which is the absence of a supreme sultan or royal institute, the participants in the uprising characterize and name differently: Stoyan Stalev the Muscovite calls it “Free Republic”, Lefter Rusinov Mechev and Dimitar Hristov Dichev — “Short-term Republic”, and Hristo Silyanov — “Malkotarnovo commune”.
“On August 10, along the entire extension of the Lozengrad Sanjak, the Turkish-Bulgarian border no longer existed — writes Silyanov. — Along this entire length, the principality bordered not with Turkey, but with the Turkish territory conquered by the insurgents, with the newly founded state, which we named “Malkoturnovska Commune.”