Komitadji

{{Short description|1870s–1900s anti-Ottoman rebels in the Balkans}}

File:IMARO Activists - Bulgarian Comitadjii - Captured by the Allies Police.jpg.]]

File:Bulgarian IMARO members arrested by the Allies in Thessaloniki during WWI.jpg during WWI in Thessaloniki.]]

Komitadji, Comitadji, or Komita (plural: Komitadjis, Comitadjis, or Komitas) (Bulgarian, Macedonian and {{langx|sr|Комити}}, {{lang|sr-Latn|Komiti}}, {{langx|ro|Comitagiu}}, {{langx|el|Κομιτατζής, plural: Κομιτατζήδες|Komitatzḗs}}, pl. {{lang|el-Latn|Komitatzḗdes}}, {{langx|tr|Komitacı}}, {{langx|sq|Komit}}) was a collective name for members of various rebel bands (chetas) operating in the Balkans during the final period of the Ottoman Empire. The name itself originates from Turkish and translates as "committee members". Komitadjis fought against the Turkish authorities and were supported by the governments of the neighbouring states, especially Bulgaria.The Making of a New Europe: R.W. Seton-Watson and the Last Years of Austria-Hungary, Hugh Seton-Watson, Christopher Seton-Watson, Methuen, 1981, {{ISBN|0416747302}}, p. 71.

The word komitadji is Turkish, meaning literally "committee man". It came to be used for the guerilla bands, which, subsidized by the governments of the Christian Balkan states, especially of Bulgaria.

Komitadji was used to describe the members of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee during the April Uprising of 1876,Salâhi Sonyel, Minorities and the Destruction of the Ottoman Empire; Turkish Historical Society Printing House, 1993; {{ISBN|975160544X}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=_W2KAAAAMAAJ&q=komitadjis+ p. 232].Христо Марков Йонков, Числен, социален и класов състав на революционерите в Априлското възстание 1876: Историко-социологическо изследване на ІV революционен окръг. Изд. на Българската академия на науките, 1993, стр. 34.[https://books.google.com/books?id=pRn307aQfW8C&dq=comitadjis+committee&pg=PA20 Maiden Tribute], Grace Eckley, Xlibris Corporation, 2007, {{ISBN|1462838111}}, p. 20. and Bulgarian bands during the following Russo-Turkish War.Paul Mojzes, Balkan Genocides: Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the Twentieth Century, Rowman & Littlefield, 2011, {{ISBN|1442206632}}, p. 11. The term is often employed to refer later to groups of rebels associated with the Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees and the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee called by the Turks simply the Bulgarian Committees.[https://books.google.com/books?id=ilGfCIF4Ao4C&dq=historical+dictionary+macedonia+comitadjis&pg=PR57 Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia], Dimitar Bechev, Scarecrow Press, 2009, {{ISBN|0810862956}}, p. Ivii.

In interwar Greece and Yugoslavia, the term was used to refer to bands organized by the pro-Bulgarian Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation and Internal Thracian Revolutionary Organisation, which operated in Vardar and Aegean Macedonia and Western Thrace.The Comitadji Question in Southern Serbia, Rodolphe Archibald Reiss, Hazell, 1924. In interwar Romania, the term was used to refer to bands organized by the pro-Bulgarian Internal Dobrujan Revolutionary Organisation, which attacked the Romanian outposts and the Aromanian colonists in Southern Dobruja. During the Second World War this name was used to designate the members of the pro-Bulgarian Ohrana active in Northern Greece.[https://books.google.com/books?id=3hFahiZflJoC&dq=komitadji&pg=PA69 Plundered Loyalties: Axis Occupation and Civil Strife in Greek West Macedonia, 1941–1949], Giannēs Koliopoulos, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 1999, {{ISBN|185065381X}}, p. 69.