Near the Rozhen Monastery, near Melnik, with the detachment of the Nevrkop voivode Stoyan Filipov, Yane Sandanski was ambushed and killed.
Yane Sandanski was born on May 18, 1872 in the village of Vlahi, Blagoevgrad Region. After the defeat of the Kresna-Razloj Uprising of 1878-1879, his parents moved to Dupnitsa and he received his primary education there. After that, he worked as a census taker, a civil servant, etc., while at the same time continuing to educate himself, reports the InfoBulgaria website.
He joined the national liberation struggle of the Bulgarians from Macedonia in the late 1890s. He traveled with detachments to Macedonia several times in order to help accelerate the process of building revolutionary committees in various settlements. At the same time, he also made efforts to procure weapons and funds for the organization. One of his most daring actions in this direction was the famous "Miss Stone" affair. On August 21, 1901, on the road between Bansko and Gorna Dzhumaya, Elena Stone and her companion Katerina Tsilka were kidnapped. The kidnappers demanded a ransom from Turkey, which, due to pressure from the Great Powers, they received. The 14,500 golden Turkish liras received on January 18, 1902 were used to purchase weapons.
Yane Sandanski did not approve of the decision taken by the Thessaloniki Congress for an uprising in Macedonia and the Adrianople in the spring of 1903. However, he did not oppose it and actively participated in the preparation of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising of 1903.
After the death of Gotse Delchev, Yane Sandanski established himself as one of the leaders of the left in the Internal Macedonian-Adrian Revolutionary Organization. Thanks to his efforts, despite the defeat of the uprising, in the next few years this trend gained dominance in the organization. In the absence of Hr. Matov and Dr. Tatarchev during the Rila Congress of the organization in 1905, the left tried to impose its views in the decisions taken by the congress and the new statute adopted by it. The Marxists D. Hadzhidimov and N. Harlakov joined the group of the Serski Revolutionary District and influenced Sandanski's behavior. The leftists insisted on supranationality and decentralization in the Organization.
In December 1906, a congress of the VMRO was convened, at which Sandanski and his supporters initiated a split in the Organization. In his fight against the right wing, Sandanski went to extremes and in November 1907 ordered the murder of two of its leaders - Ivan Garvanov and Boris Sarafov. This marked the beginning of the fratricidal war between the two movements, which did not subside even after the end of the First World War 1914-1918.
At the Kyustendil Congress in March 1908, Yane Sandanski was expelled from the organization and sentenced to death. After the Young Turk Revolution in June 1908, Sandanski also emerged from underground and in many places the weapons entrusted to him were handed over to the authorities. Only two years later, the Young Turks began a large-scale campaign to destroy the VMRO. At that time, Sandanski continued to receive money from the Turks every month.
He became one of the founders and leaders of the People's Federative Party, which stood behind the idea of an independent Macedonia within the framework of a South Slavic federation.
During the Balkan War, he supported the offensive of the Bulgarian troops. Sandanski was killed on April 22, 1915 in Pirin, in the Baltata area, in an ambush by the regional Nevrokop detachment of the VMRO.