The Melnik Uprising

After the Russo-Turkish War of Liberation of 1877–1878, Macedonia and Edirne Thrace remained under Ottoman rule. The liberated Bulgarian territories sheltered many refugees from the lands that had not been liberated. On 19 March 1895, the Macedonian associations established in Bulgaria convened a congress. It elected the Supreme Macedonian Committee (SMC), with Trayko Kitanchev as chairman. Several small revolutionary detachments were sent into Macedonia in the spring of 1895. In the summer, the SMC launched a major insurgent operation that became known as the Melnik Uprising.

The uprising was unsuccessful, and a short-lived split developed within the Supreme Macedonian Committee.