Rusa Delcheva, Goce Delchev’s sister

Rusha was born in Kukush, 1868. According to many, she was the first woman to baptize her brother Goce in the ranks of the organization, and at the same time the first woman in the organization in 1895. She performed courier tasks, hid and carried weapons and Chetniks. During the Balkan Wars, she appeared as a volunteer with the three sons and the only remaining living brother of Christ and fought with 60 Kukushani to liberate Macedonia. It was disappointed with the partition of Macedonia and the internal fratricidal calculations in VMRO

Women in the Macedonian Revolutionary Movement from the Predective and Ilinden Period (15)

Many events and revolutionaries have been known in Macedonian history that have left a strong mark in the fighting for the liberation of Macedonia. However, what is not well known is that these struggles included more Macedonians, who also contributed to the revolutionary work with their works and actions. Around them were knitted stories, myths and legends were built, and their biographies look like true novels, which seem to be produced by the greatest fantasies of the writers. These women fought breasts in the chest with the enemy, sewing insurgent flags, performing
Courier tasks, conveying weapons and ammunition, hid and treated the Macedonian revolutionaries. Their revolutionary engagement was told by contemporaries, and among the people were
known as the « Komitas ».
The author Dr. Slavco Koviloski is a university professor.

Rusa Delcheva is Goce Delchev’s sister. Such an introduction seems to us the simplest and quite enough to start data on its life path and revolutionary activities.
The Delchev family has been embedded in Macedonian history with Stoicism, the construction of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization and its institutions, building the ideological sidice and the victims he has given for his homeland. Rusha’s father and mother, Nikola and Sultana, gave birth to nine children, five daughters and four sons: Rusha, Zoca, Giorgi (Goce), Tina, Great, Elena, Dimitar, Milan and Christ. Of these, three died in fighting with the army for just two years. The first to kill Dimitar (Mico) on February 4, 1901. (He was 22 years old), followed by Goce’s death on May 4, 1903. (31 years old) and Milan died next month on June 12, 1903. (he was 20 years old). Faced with the losses, parents have difficult to do those moments, and with a broken heart mother Sultana died in 1907. Father Nicholas survived the Balkan and World War I, and died in Upper Sumaya, 1920. His words are known on the occasion of Goce’s death: « Two you killed (Mico Delchev, the younger Gocev brother was already killed at the time), but I have two more. And to kill them, I have fifteen grandchildren, and they will not leave you! » Rusa Delcheva, as well as her father and brothers, grew in such an environment, accepted that victims should be given to freedom.
Rusha was born in Kukush, 1868. According to many, she was the first woman to baptize her brother Goce in the ranks of the organization, and at the same time the first woman in the organization in 1895. She performed courier tasks, hid and carried weapons and Chetniks. During the Balkan Wars, she appeared as a volunteer with the three sons and the only remaining living brother of Christ and fought with 60 Kukushani to liberate Macedonia. He was disappointed with the partition of Macedonia and the internal fratricidal calculations in VMRO. Therefore, from 1923 to 1926 Rusha went to the Sofia restaurants where the Macedonian revolutionaries and Bulgarian officials were sitting, knocking down the masses and shouting, « Drink, killers, but know that the wine is the blood of those killed by the fierce hearts. » Therefore, Rusa became the target of dissenters led by Todor Alexandrov and then by Vanco Mihailov. Attempts to murder were not successful, but the family house and field were seized, after which the Famili family was forced to move and look for a new home.

After marrying the Andon (Done) Furnier, Shopov took his surname, so she was also known as Rusa Shopova. Done had seven children: Mircho (died in 1913), Vladimir (died in 1918), Todor (killed in 1923), Tushe, Lika (Great), Lenka and Magda. After the Balkan wars, the family fleeed in Sofia and then live in Upper Sumaya for some time. She was strongly tied to her family, and even at an older age she participated in the liberation struggles, helping her son Shushe, who as a communist, was exposed to the exiles by the authorities. In the following years she hid weapons, intercepted them and helped young Macedonian communists: Anton Popov, Nikola Vapcarov, Dimitar Mitrev and others. She died on June 9, 1944. After the liberation of Macedonia, her daughter Lika Shopova from Sofia moved to Skopje, where she died on September 5, 1983.
From Lika Shopova, later Jurukova, there are more memories related to Rusa. « She was a tall, beautiful and brave woman who was not afraid of the threats of the Turks. She conveyed weapons, encrypted letters and clothing from the Dukes and the Committees in the villages, visited them in the Kukish and Thessaloniki prisons, etc., » she would say in her memories. Physically « She was tall, strict, big, her face was decorated with live brown eyes, pearl teeth, with a blush over her left eyebrow, with wrinkles between the two eyes, which reflected her courage and wisdom … When she told the fighting and the arrests, the white face frightened her. » She was not educated, but she was naturally gifted. The daughter Lika added with her memories: « The whole thing was to the work. The Turks often intimidated her with murder, but she was curious and was not afraid of their threats. It was a relationship with all the dukes and komitas acting in Kukush and Kukushko.
Memories of Rusha left another granddaughter, Katerina Zivkova Neyska: “It was very interesting. She gave me the impression of a very strong man. A man -tall woman, with very high eyebrows, with her face. She was dressed with a lot of dress (a lower part of the dress. Black… Grandma was telling me about Goce Delchev.

He was an idol, the ideal of the family. Everyone in that family deeply carried the feeling that they were relatives of a great man. But they were all very, very modest. They never paraded with that, and many talked about him. I also know that Baba Rusha, as his oldest sister with his whole temperament, became his helper. I heard from her that she was hiding materials and weapons as a member of the Revolutionary Committees … She was with a company – the only woman – to be bought … « 
Rusa Delcheva, or Rusa Shopova, grew up in the fighting family Delchevi obliged her offspring, fellow citizens, uninterrupted struggle for liberation of Macedonia. And she saw a lot of death, many victims, from the brothers to her sons. But perhaps the ideal of freedom and walking freely after her home country gave her strength to persevere, so as not to shake, and maybe something else. Who knows? It remains only to affirm her work, which, although not at the forefront of the organization, was needed to be able to be safe, to be protected. Therefore, here’s another Delcevi member; So here’s another hero…

Dr. Slavco Koviloski

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