Yane Sandanski - Legacy

Legacy

In the Republic of Macedonia Sandanski is considered a national hero and one of the most prominent revolutionary figures of the 20th century. Most of the Macedonian mainstream specialists on the history of local revolutionary movement, like Academician Katardzhiev, argue that the political separatism of Sandanski represented a form of early Macedonian nationalism, asserting later that at that time it was only a political phenomenon, without an ethnic character. Today, Sandanski is one of the names mentioned in the National anthem of the Republic of Macedonia. In Bulgaria the communist regime appreciated Sandanski because of his socialist ideas and honoured him by renaming the town Sveti Vrach to Sandanski, in 1949. In the years after the Fall of Communism some right-wing Bulgarian historians have been keen to discredit his reputation. Sandanski Point on the E coast of Ioannes Paulus II Peninsula, Livingston Island, Antarctica bears his name as well.