Miladinov Brothers - Short Biography of Dimitar Miladinov

Short Biography of Dimitar Miladinov

Dimitar Miladinov was born in Struga, Ottoman Empire, in 1810. His mother was Sultana and father Hristo Miladinov. With the assistance from friends, Dimitar was sent to Yanina, at that time, a prominent Greek educational center. He had absorbed much of the Greek culture including their classics, and became proficient in the Greek language. In 1829, he stayed in the Saint Naum monastery in Ohrid to continue his education, and in 1830 he became a teacher in Ohrid. Meanwhile, his father died, and his brother was born - Konstantin Miladinov. The Miladinov family had eight children — six boys and two girls: Dimitar (the oldest), Atanas, Mate, Apostol, Naum, Konstantin, Ana and Krsta. In 1832, he moved to Durrës, Albania, working in the local trade chamber. From 1833 through 1836 he studied in Ioannina, preparing to become teacher. Eventually he returned to Ohrid and began teaching.

In 1836, he introduced a new teaching method in his classroom. He increased the school programme with new subjects, such as philosophy, arithmetics, geography, Old Greek and Greek literature, Latin and French. Soon he became popular and respected among his students and peers. After two years, he left Ohrid and returned to Struga. From 1840 to 1842, he was a teacher in Kilkis, today in Greece. He became active in the town's social life, strongly opposing the phanariotes. At the instigation of Dimitar Miladinov, and with the full approval of the city fathers, in 1858, the use of the Greek language was banished from the churches and substituted with the Old Bulgarian. In 1859 he received word that Ohrid had officially demanded, from the Turkish government, the restoration of Bulgarian Patriarchate. Dimitar Miladinov left Kukush and headed for Ohrid to help. There he translated Bible texts in the Bulgarian language (considered in the Republic of Macedonia as Macedonian). Dimitar Miladinov tried to introduce the Bulgarian language into the Greek school in Prilep in 1856 causing an angry reaction from the local Greeks. In a letter to "Tsarigradski Vestnik" of February 28, 1860, he reports: "…In the entire country of Ohrid, there is not a single Greek family, except three or four villages of Vlahs. All of the rest of the population is pure Bulgarian.…" Angered by this act of the citizens of Ohrid and their leader, the Greek Bishop Miletos denounced Miladinov as a Russian agent. He was accused of spreading pan-Slavic ideas and was imprisoned in Istanbul later to be joined by his supporting brother Konstantin. In January 1862 both brothers died in prison from typhus.