The "Adrianople Region" was the general name given by the Organization to those areas of Thrace which, like Macedonia, had been left under Turkish rule i.e. most of it, where the Bulgarian element predominated in the mixed population, too. The organized revolutionary movement in Thrace dates from 1895, when Dame Gruev recruited Hristo Kotsev, born in Shtip, who was then a teacher in the Bulgarian Men's High School of Adrianople. Acting in the name of the Central Committee, Kotsev set up a regional committee in Adrianople, and gradually committees were established in a large area.