Ivan Mihailov

Ivan Mihailov, also known as Vancho Mihailov or Radko, was a revolutionary and political leader of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO). Born in Novo Selo, Štip, he studied in Štip, Thessaloniki, and Skopje before continuing law studies at Sofia University. In the early 1920s, he became secretary to Todor Alexandrov, later joining IMRO’s Central Committee after Alexandrov’s assassination.

Mihailov promoted the idea of an independent and united Macedonia, but within a framework tied closely to Bulgaria, regarding Pirin Macedonia as its core. As IMRO leader from 1925, he implemented a policy of individual terror, organizing political assassinations of rivals and establishing a semi-official parallel authority in Pirin Macedonia with Bulgarian state approval. He cultivated ties with Fascist Italy and later collaborated with Ante Pavelić’s regime in the Independent State of Croatia, as well as with Nazi Germany during World War II.

After the 1934 coup in Bulgaria and IMRO's ban, Mihailov lived in exile in Turkey, Poland, Croatia, Austria, Spain, and Italy. In September 1944, with German backing, he briefly attempted to form a puppet “Independent Macedonia” in Skopje, but failed to gain support.

Postwar, he resided in Rome, supported financially by the Macedonian Patriotic Organization in the U.S. and Canada. He authored multi-volume memoirs and other works. Remembered as a divisive figure, he is regarded in Bulgarian historiography as a national liberation activist, but in Macedonian and left-wing narratives as a terrorist, collaborator, and the most controversial leader of the IMRO.