Ivan Mihailov

Ivan Mihailov (bulg.: ???? ????????), also known as Vanche Mihailov (bulg.: ????? ????????), (August 26, 1896, Novo Selo, present-day Republic of Macedonia – September 5, 1990, Rome, Italy) was a Bulgarian revolutionary, leader of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization after 1924.

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Mihailov studied at the Bulgarian Secondary School "St. Cyril and Methodius" in Solun/Thessaloniki until the Second Balkan War when the school was closed by the new Greek administration and he was forced to continue his studies at a Serbian school in Skopje. He was offered a scholarship by the Serbian Ministry of Education to pursue a degree at a European university but declined and enlisted instead in the Bulgarian army. After the end of World War I, Mihailov settled in Sofia and started to study law at the Sofia University where he was contacted by activists of the IMRO and offered to work as a secretary for IMRO?s leader at that time, Todor Alexandrov.

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After the death of Alexandrov on August 31, 1924, Mihailov was elected member of the Central Committee of IMRO and shortly afterwards became leader of the organisation. The election of Mihailov as leader of IMRO marks a period of intensification of the armed struggle of the organisation in Greek, and especially in Serbian Macedonia. A total of 63 terrorist acts and attacks on bridges, warehouses, Serbian police stations and military targets were undertaken between 1922 and 1930, the number of the assassinated Serbian officials and collaborators of the regime in Belgrade numbered some 1,000.

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In the late 1920s, Mihailov got into contact with the leader of the Croatian Ustase movement, Ante Pavelic and the two organisations started to co-operate in their struggle against the Serbian regime. The most obvious result of that co-operation was the assassination of the arch-foe, King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, on October 9, 1934 in the French city of Marseilles. The assassination was carried out by the personal driver of Mihailov, Vlado Chernozemski.

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The events in 1934 prompted the Bulgarian government to take action against the IMRO and expelled Mihailov from Bulgaria. The organisation was tolerated by previous Bulgarian governments as its goal was the liberation of the Macedonian Bulgarians. As a result of this, IMRO had built an extensive network in Pirin Macedonia and Sofia, which was used to provide financing for the organisation and an operational base from which the incursions into Yugoslavia and Greece were conducted.

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After 1934, Mihailov lived in Turkey, Poland and Hungary to finally settle in the capital of the Independent State of Croatia, the Usta?a puppet-state between 1941 and 1944. In 1941, Mihailov was offered by the Germans to head a future semi-independent Macedonian state but he declined favouring the occupation of Vardar Macedonia by Bulgaria. In 1944, he was forced to flee again, this time to Italy where he lived for the rest of his life. Although IMRO was no longer active, Mihailov continued his interest in the fate of the Macedonian Bulgarian writing books and publishing articles.

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August 26: August 26 is the 238th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (239th in leap years). There are 127 days remaining....

1896: 1896 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar)....

Republic of Macedonia: The Republic of Macedonia?, referred to by the United Nations and many countries as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), is an independent state on the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. It is often called Macedonia, although this can cause confusion with the wider geographical r...

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