History of the Macedonian Tribune

Mitko Popov was editor of the MACEDONIAN TRIBUNE at a time when the organization was experiencing tremendous difficulties. With undying loyalty and tremendous self-sacrifice, he kept the presses rolling issue after issue.

For more than two years he worked alone writing, typesetting, mailing and handling financial matters. His commitment and labor were exemplary.

"Many times he would work all Thursday night just answering the many letters the office received. It was Thursday because the paper was mailed that day, and he began the next issue on Friday," explains his widow Vera Popov.

To help support Vera and their four daughters, Mitko worked on weekends as a chef in one of Indianapolis' best restaurants. Most weeks he worked 80 - 90 hours. He was truly a man dedicated to a free and independent Macedonia, the MPO and the MACEDONIAN TRIBUNE. Mitko and his brother Anton began working for the MPO in the early 1970s. They worked together publishing the TRIBUNE and attending to other work. Anton also was editor for a while, but he left in the early 1980s to return to Rome to be with his wife Vida when their son Naiden was born.

Vera says Mitko's dedication came from love for his country and a dislike of communists. He often told her, "One day communism will come to an end because nothing can exist without a foundation."

He was born in 1936 at Breznitsa, Pirin Macedonia. When the communists came to power, his family was persecuted and their land was confiscated because they refused to call themselves ethnic Macedonians as the communist party had dictated.

When he was 17, he escaped over the border into Yugoslavia. The group he was with crossed two by two then regrouped at Gerovo where they asked for political asylum. They were sent first to Shtip, when after extensive questioning, they were sent to Skopie and then to Ohrid.

He was jailed in what is called Camp of the Dead near Gerovo because he continued to call himself a Bulgarian rather than Macedonian, a political requirement of the government. Thanks to a UN commission, he and his five friends received help and were allowed to emigrate to Italy in 1956. He arrived in the US as a political refugee in 1958.

Mitko was introduced to Vera Yaneva by his good friends Spas Markoff and Dimitar Atzev. Vera's father, the Macedonian voivoda Dimitar Velkov, had immigrated to Canada in the mid 1950s and brought his family over in the mid 1960s. Vera was a registered nurse and now works as a medical assistant with an India napolis cardiology group.

Their eldest daughter Stanka is a graduate of Indiana University. Effie was just graduated with honors from the University of Indianapolis. Diana attends Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, and Lora will be a freshman in high school this fall. Mitko was a member of the Central Committee. He died in 1991.