On this day (August 12, 1903), the famous Battle of Mečkin Kamen took place in defense of the Kruševo Republic, where the celebrated Macedonian revolutionary, Voivode Pitu Guli (Pito Vule), lost his life. Born in 1865 into a Vlach family in Kruševo, Pitu became a member of the Kruševo Insurgent Staff as a voivode. He worked tirelessly and with absolute devotion both during the immediate preparations and during the uprising itself. At the critical moment before the Turkish army advanced toward liberated Kruševo, Pitu fiercely expressed his stance: "If we were men enough to take the town with blood, then we must be men enough to defend it..." This stance aligned fully with the oath sworn upon joining the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization and the Insurgent Disciplinary Code adopted at the Smilevo Congress. Under the motto "Liberty or Death," his detachment fought heroically at Mečkin Kamen to the very end against the forces of Bakhtiyar Pasha advancing toward the town. By laying down his life for the freedom of Macedonia, Pitu Guli etched his name into Macedonia’s brightest pantheon.