Imro & Umo

A curt announcement appeared last week in official Bulgarian newsorgans:

"The Ministry of Justice has ordered an investigation into the murder of the Journalist Pundeff. A warrant has been issued for the arrest of Ivan Mihailoff."

Sofia wiseacres shook their heads in apprehension. Tsankoff had overreached himself, they said. This was madness, this was suicide.

In the welter of Bulgarian names which the announcement sent rumbling across cafe tables, the one soonest forgotten was unfortunate Journalist Pundeff whose murder was being officially investigated. Every Bulgar realized that Pundeff was a mere symbol. The real battle was between Professor Alexander Tsankoff, Minister of Instruction, onetime Prime Minister (1923-26), and Ivan Mihailoff, leader of the dreaded Imro.

Like every other Balkan state, Bulgaria is riddled with racial minorities. Some 50 years ago the Macedonians of southwestern Bulgaria organized, to press their claims for independence, a society known as the Inner Macedonian Revolutionary Organization--Imro. Potent as Calabria's oldtime Mafia is the Imro. For years its members have murdered and bombed their opponents; seldom has a Bulgar dared appear against them.

Professor Tsankoff mortally hates and fears secret societies. Across his forehead is a jagged white scar, received during his Prime Ministry when a Bolshevist bomb, intended to wipe out him and his entire cabinet, burst and killed 200 Sofia citizens. Yet his dearest friend, a General Protogeroff, was a leader of one branch of the Imro. Converted by his friend. General Protogeroff publicly announced that he had abandoned violence as a policy, would limit himself to peaceful propaganda. Soon General Protogeroff was shot down as a lily-livered weakling. Left in sole command of the Imro was the sinister gunman Ivan Mihailoff who has publicly boasted that he alone was responsible for the death of General Protogeroff, that not a Bulgarian official dared do a thing about it.

Professor Tsankoff dared. Protected by a bodyguard of detectives he has worked ceaselessly for months gathering evidence against the Imro. In May the tide began to turn in his favor. He entered the Cabinet of grey-bearded Prime Minister Andrei Liaptcheff. Imro's Ivan Mihailoff prudently disappeared from Sofia, some say to Italy. Last week Minister Tsankoff persuaded his colleagues in the Cabinet that it was safe to move openly against the Imro. Bulgarians waited breathlessly for the next move, Mihailoffs retaliation.

From Poland last week came news of another terrorist organization, replica of the Imro, known as the Umo or Ukrainian Military Organization under the command of a Col. Konovalec. In the past few years the Umo has attempted to murder Poland's Dictator, Marshal Josef Pilsudski; Poland's second President, Jan Wojciechowski; the Minister of Commerce and Industry Eugene Kwiatkowski; has succeeded in murdering a State official, one Sobinski. Last week the Umo added to its reputation by burning a Franciscan convent and 60 farms.

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