Gjorche Petrov

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Gjorche Petrov

Gjorche Petrov Petrov (Bulgarian: Гьорче Петров; Macedonian: Ѓорче Петров) (1864/1865 - June 28, 1921) was one of the leaders of the Macedonian-Adrianople revolutionary movement (IMARO, BMARC before 1902). His own works (a description of Macedonia written in 1896 and his memoirs recorded in 1905) indicate that he considered himself to be ethnic Bulgarian ^[1]. That fact notwithstanding, as with many other IMARO leaders of the time, historians from the Republic of Macedonia prefer to describe him as an ethnic Macedonian.

Born in the village of Varosh, he studied at the secondary school for boys in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Then he worked as a teacher in various towns of Macedonia. He took part in the revolutionary campaign in Macedonia as well as in the Thessaloniki Congress of the Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees (BMARC) in 1896. He was among the authors of the organization's new charter and rules, which he co-wrote with Goce Delchev.

Gjorche was the representative of the Foreign Committee of the BMARC/IMARO in Sofia in 1897-1901. He did not approve of the untimely outbreak of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising in 1903, but he participated in the fighting leading a large cheta. After the unsuccessful uprising Petrov continued his participation in IMARO.

Petrov was again included in the Emigrant representation in Sofia in 1905-1908. After the Young Turks Revolution of 1908, Petrov together with writer Anton Strashimirov edited the "Kulturno Edinstvo" magazine ("Cultural Unity"), published in Thessaloniki (Solun).

He was President of the Regular Regional Committee in Bitola for some time during the First World War, after IMARO had disbanded, and afterwards became mayor of Drama. At the end of the war he was one of the initiators of the formation of a Provisional Government of the United former IMRO, and this government set the task of defending the positions of the Bulgarians in Macedonia at the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920). He was also Chief of the Refugees Settlement Agency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He kept close ties with Aleksandar Dimitrov and some other prominent Agrarian leaders, thus incurring IMRO leaders' hatred upon himself. He was eventually killed by them in June 1921 in Sofia.