Hristo Tatarchev

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Hristo Tatarchev

Hristo Tatarchev (December 16, 1869 - January 5, 1952) was a Bulgarian revolutionary and leader of the revolutionary movement in Macedonia and Eastern Thrace. He was among the founders of the Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees in October 1893 (the organization was renamed to IMARO in 1906 and IMRO in 1920). He wrote the memoirs The First Central Committee of the IMRO (1928). He authored several political journalism works between the First and Second World Wars.

Tatarchev was born in the village of Resen, Macedonia in a rich family. His father Nikola Tatarchev was a successful banker, and his mother Katerina was a descendant of a prominent family. Hristo Tatarchev received his initial education in Resen, then in Bratsigovo (1882) and eventually at the Secondary school for boys in Plovdiv (1883-87). It was at that time when he enrolled in a students' legion, which took part in the Serbo-Bulgarian War of 1885. Tatarchev was expelled from school because of "insubordination" and he moved to Romania where he continued his secondary education. Later he studied medicine at the University of Zurich (1887-1890) and completed his degree in Medicine in Berlin (July 1892). He moved to Thessaloniki in 1892, where he worked as physician at the local Bulgarian secondary school for boys.

He was a founding member of the Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committee (renamed to IMARO in 1906), which was established on October 23, 1893 in Thessaloniki. In the following year he was elected President of the Central Committee of IMARO. Tatarchev participated in the Thessaloniki Congress of BMARC in 1896.

In early 1901 he was caught by the Ottoman authorities and sent into exile for 5 years in Podrum Kale in Asia Minor. Although he was granted amnesty on August 19, 1902, Tatarchev did not give up revolutionary fight and in August 1902 he became a representative of the Foreign Committee of the IMRO in Sofia. Being such, he met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Vladimir Lamsdorf (1845-1907), who had arrived in Bulgaria at the end of 1902. Tatarchev presented Lamsdorf with an IMARO-designed plan of reforms to be introduced in Macedonia.

During the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising of 1903, Tatarchev guided the revolutionary fight, as the emigrant representation turned out to be the sole governing body of the organization. To his credit, Tatarchev did not desert the revolutionary campaign when the uprising was quelled.

Later he was again part of the emigrant agency of IMARO, as an additional member. When Bulgaria entered the First World War, Tatarchev was sent to the front as a regimental physician. At the end of the war he was one of the initiators of the Provisional Representation of the United former IMARO.

In the of Fall 1920 he entered the Macedonian Federative Organization, which was founded shortly after that. Tatarchev was forced to emigrate because of significant discord between the IMRO's leaders and him. Hristo Tatarchev settled in Turin, Italy, where he died on January 5, 1952.