Gyorche Petrov

Gyorche Petrov Nikolov (Bulgarian: Гьорче Петров; Macedonian:Ѓорче Петров ), born Georgi Petrov Nikolov (April 2, 1865 – June 28, 1921), was a Bulgarian revolutionary, one of the leaders of the Macedonian-Adrianople revolutionary movement. In the Republic of Macedonia he is considered Ethnic Macedonian.

Born in Prilep, Ottoman empire, today, Republic of Macedonia), he studied at the Bulgarian Exarchate's school in Prilep and the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki. Later he attended the Gymnazium in Plovdiv, capital of the recently created Eastern Rumelia. Then Petrov worked as a Bulgarian Exarchate's 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 Gotse Delchev.

Gjorche Petrov was the representative of the Foreign Committee of the BMARC/IMARO in Sofia in 1897-1901. He did not approve of the ultimately outbreak of the Uprising on Ilinden, 2 August 1903, but he participated leading a squad. After the unsuccessful uprising Petrov continued his participation in IMARO. The failure of the Uprising reignited the rivalries between the varying factions of the Macedonian revolutionary movement. The left-wing faction including Petrov, opposed Bulgarian nationalism but the Centralist's faction of the IMARO, drifted more and more towards it. 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). In 1911 a new Central Committee of IMARO was formed and the Centralists faction gained full control over the Organization.

During the Balkan wars, Gyorche Petrov was a volunteer in the 5th company of Macedonian-Adrianopolitan Volunteer Corps. He was President of the Regular Regional Committee in Bitola for some time during the First World War and Bulgarian administration in Vardar Macedonia and afterwards became mayor of Drama. At the end of the war he was one of the initiators of the formation of a new leftist organization called Provisional representation of the former United Internal Revolutionary Organization, and this government set a task of defending the positions of the Bulgarians in Macedonia at the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920).

He kept close ties with the new government of Bulgarian Agrarian National Union (BANU), especially with minister Aleksandar Dimitrov and some other prominent Agrarian leaders. BANU rejected territorial expansion and aimed at forming a Balkan federation of agrarian states, a policy which began with a détente with Yugoslavia. As result Petrov became a Chief of the Bulgarian Refugees Agency by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, thus incurring IMRO Centralist faction leaders' hatred upon himself.

He was eventually killed by an IMRO-assassin in June 1921 in Sofia. The assassination of Gyorche Petrov complicated relations between IMRO and Bulgarian government and produced significant dissensions in the Macedonian movement.

To honor his name a suburb of Skopje was named Gjorče Petrov, or usually shortly referred only as Gjorče. The suburb is one of the ten municipalities of Skopje, the capital of the Republic of Macedonia.