Secret Macedonian Committee

The Macedonian Society or Secret Macedonian Committee (Macedonian: Таен македонски комитет, romanized: Taen makedonski komitet; Serbian: Тајни македонски комитет, Tajni makedonski komitet), was a secret organization established in 1885 by Macedonian Slavs in Sofia, Bulgaria, to promote а Slav Macedonian identity, distinguished especially from the ethnic identity of the Bulgarians, the re-establishment of the Archbishopric of Ohrid as a separate entity from the Bulgarian Exarchate and the promotion of the Macedonian language.^[1][2][3] Its leaders were Naum Evrov, Kosta Grupčev, Vasilij Karajovev and Temko Popov.^[4]

Temko Popov, one of the leaders of the society

For the Greek revolutionary organization in Macedonia, see Hellenic Macedonian Committee.

In 1886, the Bulgarian government revealеd the organization and it was disbanded. Some of its leaders went back to Belgrade in the same year, where the Government of Serbia established a cooperation with that ephemeral Macedonian Society.^[5] By supporting the Macedonian movement, the Government of Serbia had intention to suppress the process of Bulgarisation of Macedonian Christian Slavs or to debulgarize them.^[6][7] In accordance with the Serbo-Macedonian cooperation in the same year in Constantinople was founded the Association of Serbo-Macedonians. This compromise with the Serbian interests in Macedonia later led to abandonment of its separatist program altogether.^[8] As a result, later its members promoted already only pro-Serbian ideas.^[9]