Background
Metodi Andonov was born in Pirlepe, which was then part of the Manastir Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire.
Metodi Andonov was born in Pirlepe, which was then part of the Manastir Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire.
Today it is called Prilep and is in the Republic of Macedonia. As a child, he worked in opium poppy fields and harvested tobacco. During his adolescence, he was considered to be an excellent gymnast.
In 1939, he was imprisoned at Velika Kikinda for co-organizing the Ilinden Demonstrations in Prilep.
The following year, he imposed the use of the Macedonian language in school lectures and was therefore imprisoned at Bajina Bašta and sentenced to death by the government of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia for advocating the use of a language other than Serbo-Croatian. On April 15, 1941, he was presented to a firing squad, but was released just prior to being shot.
Čento"s liquor store was used as a front for the communist resistance in Macedonia, which prompted Bulgarian authorities to imprison him. In 1944, he was elected as President of Anti-Fascist Assembly of the National Liberation of Macedonia.
Čento"s goal was to create a fully independent United Macedonian state or as a constituent republic within the new communist SFR Yugoslavia.
He clashed with Svetozar Vukmanović-Tempo, Josip Broz Tito’s envoy to Macedonia and Lazar Koliševski, the leader of the ruling Communist Party of Macedonia. After disagreement with the policy of new Yugoslavia and after being repressed by the authorities, Čento resigned. Čento died home on July 24, 1957, after sickness from torture in prison.
Metodija Andonov-Čento was rehabilitated in 1991 with a decision of the Supreme Court of Macedonia in which it annulled the verdict against Čento from 1946.
In 1992, his family and followers established a Čento Foundation, which initiated a lawsuit for damages against the Government of Macedonia. Until the present day (2009), a decision has not been made by the courts due to procedural lapses.
The latter became a reality with the formation of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, however, Čento as its first president wanted a greater independence for the republic from the federal Yugoslav authorities.
At the 1938 Yugoslav elections, he was elected deputy but not a Member of Parliament because of a manipulation with the electoral system.