In the 1860s a Bulgarian municipality
and Bulgarian school were established the city. Subsequently, a Bulgarian girls school
was opened and it operated
simultaneously with the Greek schools in the town. A Romanian school started
functioning in Kruševo in 1876. In
the early 20th century, Kruševo was a small town with a mixed population of
4,950Bulgarians, 4,000 Vlachs (Aromanians) and 400 Christian Albanians, according to Bulgarian
geographer Vasil Kanchov's
statistics. During the Ilinden Uprising in 1903 the rebels proclaimed a short
lived Kruševo Republic. Having
suppressed the uprising the city was almost completely destroyed by the Ottoman
army. One of the most important points in the Ilinden uprising was the
declaration of the "Manifesto of Kruševo". It called for all the
people of Macedonia regardless of their nationality and
religion to fight together against the Ottoman Empire. In the area there is a
monument called Mečkin Kamen (Bear's Stone). This was the place where Pitu Guli's band (cheta) was trying to
defend the town of Kruševo from the Turkish troops coming from Bitola. The band
and their leader (voivode) are remembered as heroic defenders of Kruševo and
the surrounding villages
