Internal Revolutionary Organisation
The Internal Revolutionary Organisation (Bulgarian: Вътрешна революционна
организация) or IRO was a Bulgarian revolutionary organisation founded and built up by
Bulgarian revolutionary Vasil Levski in the period between 1869 and 1871. The organisation represented a network of regional revolutionary
committees which were governed by a Central Committee in the town of Lovech. The foundation of
IRO reflected Levski’s ideas that the centre of revolutionary activity be transferred from the Bulgarian emigrant circles in
Romania to Bulgaria proper.
In 1871, Levski prepared the Charter of the organisation in the spirit of his own political views: liberation of Bulgaria from the Ottomans through a nation-wide revolution and establishment of the country as a democratic republic with guarantees for the equality of all of its citizens regardless of their ethnicity or religion.
By the end of 1871, both Levski and Lyuben Karavelov, the chairman of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee (BRCK), had figured out that the future success of the armed struggle against the Ottomans depended on the co-operation of both emigration and internal committees. To this end, the two organisations prepared and adopted a joint programme and charter and voted on the merger of the two organisations under the name of BRCK at a general meeting held in Bucharest in May, 1872. (see also Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee)
The goals and fundamental principles which governed the work of the Internal Revolutionary Organisation influenced the
formation and guiding principles of subsequent Bulgarian revolutionary organisations, namely the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organisation (active in the
Ottoman Empire from 1893 to 1912, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (active in Greek and
Yugoslav Macedonia from
See also
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