The modest, yet spacious, house of Simeon "Monkata" Popyanev in the town of Assenovgrad is a real gathering point for all patriots sharing the pain of the struggle for Bulgarian Macedonia, its host is a company leader. His 82 years weigh on his shoulders, his memories are not that clear and succinct, but this is his life, it has never been a straight road.

Monkata's father, Gosho Popianev was the secretary of the company (the "cheta") of the legendary leader (voyvoda) Burlyo who acted in the region of Stip. It is in the same time, around the years 1922-1924 that Vlado Chernozemsky was serving in the same cheta. Later, in 1929, Monkata would receive his first revolver, a 12-cartridge Savache, from the hands of Chernozemsky. The most imprtant action of Burlyo's cheta was the attack and destruction of the notorious serboman village of Kudrafakovo in the plain of Ovche pole: a place where many a traitor of the Bulgarian national cause had originated.

In 1941, Simeon Popyanev's family settled back in the native town of Stip, for a while they even lived in the house of the brothers Mile and Ortse Popyordanov, the heroes that gave their lifes for the Bulgarian cause in the years 1902-1903. IMRO sent Monkata as personal guard of Gen. Baltakov in Nish and, later, he was taking part in the tracking down of the worst serbomans in the area of Stip: alleged criminals and traitors. The defectors received their due, but the IMRO did much more in saving other men's lives. It goes without saying that the Bulgarian authorities, especially in the years of the World War Two, could not ignore the conspiratory and anti-national activity of the leftists. The IMRO, however, used the opportunity to prove their humanity. In the summer of 1944 Monkata returned to home for a six-day ... and learned that, the same day, a large group of leftists, all of them Bulgarians from Macedonia, were arrested. Gestapo instisted that the conspirators were sent to them. Under orders by the IMRO, Simeon Popyanev presented himself to Gen. Simov and convinced him to release the prisoners. We were persecuted by Turks, we were persecuted by Serbs, we cannot let Bulgarians make suffer other Bulgarians. When it comes to Bulgarian citizens, there is no right or left, this was the IMRO's stand, a position of self-dignity and magnanimity, of national solidarity. The IMRO believed that their protection would help the leftists realize the wrongs of their actions. The prisoners were liberated the next day. Among them were Kiro Gligorov, Mihailo Apostolski and other high-standing persons in present-day Vardar Macedonia. Only a week later, the leftists who had apparently realized their wrongs, preferred to go into clandestinity and took to the mountains. Monkata, in his quality of IMRO member, had saved a number of communists in Nish as well. We shall see how one of them paid him for that later, possibly in the name of them all.

You could not be a patriot from Macedonia and stay in office after September 9, 1944. The local internationalists who reached the government then sent all patriots to a "long-deserved rest". In the 10th of September Monkata's family returned to Assenovgrad. On the 14th, Monkata was already arrested. The first trhee days he was brought food by his father, who got arrested on the 18th. It is curious that the policeman who came to arrest Monkata was among the clandestine activists that Monkata himself had saved from detention in Nish. Naturally he did not say a word about that in the presence of the red commissars, instead kept his knife pressed against his back.

Monkata made the tour of many Bulgarian detention camps: Plovdiv, Bobov dol, Kutsian, it is not possible for us to trace them all back. In 1946, Monkata was seemingly released, but then he was arrested and liberated every week or two. It seemed as if he would spend all his life in temporary arrests. In 1952, his father, Gosho Popyanev was finally liberated from the camp at Kutsian, but the same procedure was applied to him as well.

Becaus of his father and grandafather's merits Petar, the son of Monkata, carried on with the painful tradition. In 1961 he was expelled from his high school and was forbidden to apply at another one. When Monkata asked one of his red tormentors why they were sending him to a camp, he just clenched his teeth: "You know too much, you know too much..."

I know much even now, Simeon Popyanev says. I know that this border, that separates us from our brothers in Vardar Macedonia, should not be. This is why I suggested (in the name of the whole municipality) that we should start with the opening of at least on checkpoint at the border with [the Republic of] Macedonia. Let us be the first to do it, unilaterally; we should not care that much how the authorities over there would react. Because I know what the ordinary people in Macedonia will say when they see that the queues of travellers are only at their side of the border; they will say: you see, our brothers opened the border, what are we waiting for? Maybe the Greeks should open it for us? But we, as if by some kind of tradition, did not do anything. Our MP's write do their MP's, their MP's would not know what to say and, in the end - nothing.

Monkata Popyanev still believes in the Bulgarian national idea and thinks that our historical chance has already showed. Peacefully, but with obstination and no deviation, we must help the Bulgarians in Macedonia rediscover their roots, get rid of the serbocommunist weeds that bore no fruit, but condemned to barenness the Bulgarian national feeling in Macedonia.

A symbol of the faith is the portrait of Todor Alexandrov, embroidered with golden silk, that is treasured like a miraculous Christian icon in Monkata's house: a relic that heals the low-spirited and gives wings to the steady. The embroidering was made in the 1920's, in Thessalonica, possibly soon after the death of the outstanding IMRO leader, this is what Simeon Popyanev knows. People all over Macedonia and Bulgaria come to see the relic and kneel in front of it. As if under the radiance of the great Bulgarian Mr. Popyanev adds that the symbol of Liberty is to be found in Macedonia. And not only for us, Bulgarians, but for the whole world.