Memoirs, Vol. 2: Revolutionary Struggle 1919-1924

by Ivan Mihailov

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Description

Memoirs, Vol. 2: Revolutionary Struggle 1919-1924 by Ivan Mihailov, published in 1965, covers the period of renewed revolutionary activity in Macedonia following the First World War. The volume details the reorganization of IMRO under Todor Alexandrov and describes armed resistance against Serbian and Greek rule in Vardar and Aegean Macedonia. Mihailov presents the movement as a continuation of the earlier liberation struggle, emphasizing clandestine organization, village support networks, and cross-border operations.

The memoir gives particular attention to the political turbulence in Bulgaria, including tensions with the government of Aleksandar Stamboliyski and the broader Balkan diplomatic environment after the Paris Peace Conference. Episodes such as arrests, prison escapes, and retaliatory actions are narrated as necessary responses to what the author defines as repression and denationalization. Throughout the text, Mihailov consistently characterizes the population of Macedonia as part of the Bulgarian national body, framing the revolutionary effort as a defense of that identity.

The publication reflects a Bulgarian nationalist interpretation of Macedonian history. As a retrospective account written decades after the events, it combines personal memory with political justification and ideological argumentation. At the same time, the volume remains a substantial primary source for examining the internal dynamics of IMRO, the atmosphere of interwar Balkan politics, and the competing national narratives surrounding Macedonia in the early twentieth century.

About the Author

Author

Ivan Mihailov(1896 - 1990)

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.