Ivan Katardžiev
Ivan Katardžiev (Bulgarian: Иван Катарджиев) (born 1926) is a Macedonian historian. He is regarded as the country's most important expert on the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization and the Macedonian history under Yugoslavia as well as the early years of independence.[1][2] He was also director of the Institute for National History.[1]
Biography
Katardžiev was born in 1926 in Ploski in western Bulgaria, in the region also known as Pirin Macedonia.[1]
In the 1950s he was head of the University Library of Skopje, the Diaspora Office and served as secretary of the Institute for National History of Macedonia.[2]
In recent years Katardžiev criticized the Macedonian ruling party, the VMRO - DPMNE, for rehabilitating several Ottoman-era revolutionaries, who had previously been blacklisted during Yugoslav rule for being too closely linked to the Bulgarian side.[2]
In October 2014 the Lustration Commission of Macedonia named Katardžiev as an informer of the state police during the 1950s. They accused him of spying on history students who originated from Pirin Macedonia. Katardžiev at the time was head of the University Library in Skopje as well as the Diaspora Office.[2] Katardžiev denied the claims, and said he was pressured himself by the police between 1955 and 1960.[2]
Works
- The Serres District from the Kresna Uprising to the Young Turks Revolution (1968)
- Time of the Maturation: The Macedonian National Question between the Two World Wars, 1919–1930 (1977)
- The Struggle for the Development and Affirmation of the Macedonian Nation (1981)
