Todor Alexandrov

Todor Alexandrov was born on March 4th 1881 in the Novo selo suburb of Shtip in the family of Alexander Poporushev and Maria Alexandrova. In 1898 he finished the Bulgarian Pedagogical School in Skopje and became a teacher consequtively in the towns of Kochani, Kratovo, the village of Vinica, and Shtip. As young as 15 years of age, he was sworn as a member of VMORO by Hristo Matov.

In 1903 Todor Alexandrov distinguished himself as an extraordinary leader and organizer of the Kochani revolutionary district. He was arrested by the Turkish authorities on Marh 3rd 1903 and sent to Skopje under enforced police escort during the same night. He was sentenced to 5 years of solitary conginement by the extraordinary court there. In 13 months time (April 1904) he was released after an amnesty. Soon afterwards he was appointed a headteacher in the Second high-school in Shtip. Todor Alexandrov, in cooperation with Todor Lazarov and Mishe Razvigorov, worked day and night to organise the Shtip revolutionary district. The results of his activities were detected by the Turkish authorities and in November 1904 he was forbidden to teach. On 10th January 1905 Alexandrov's house was surrounded by a numerous troops but the daring revolutionary succeeded in breaking throught the military cordone and immediately joined the cheta (band) of Mishe Razvigorov where he became its secretary. Alexandrov attended the First congress of the Skopje revolutionary region as a delegate from the Shtip district.

His deteriorating health made him become a teacher in the Black Sea town of Bourgas in 1906, but after learning about the heroic death of Mishe Razvigorov, he abandonced the work as a teacher and returned to Macedonia at once. In November 1907 Alexandrov was elected as a district voevoda (commander) by the Third congress of the Skopje revolutionary region.

On 2nd August 1909 the Turks made another attempt to arrest him but failed again. In the spring of 1910 he and his cheta traversed the Skopje region and organised the revolutionary activities. At the beginning of 1911 Todor Alexandrov became a member of the Central Committee of VMRO. In 1912 he is a voevoda in the Kukush and Solun (Salonika) districts where he carried out a number of sabotages against Turkish targets, facilitating this way the Bulgarian cause in the First Balkan War. In 1913 he was at the head quarters of the Third brigade of the Macedonian Militia, and during the Second Balkan War he supported the Bulgarian Eight Tundzha Division with his VMRO chetas. After 1913 he had to organise the VMRO resistance again the new oppressors - Serbs and Greeks.

On 4th November 1919 Todor Alexandrov was arrested by the government of Stambolijski but he succeeded to escape nine days later. In the spring of 1920 Alexandrov went with a cheta to Macedonia where he restored the revolutionary organisation and attracted the world's attention to the unsolved Macedonian question. At the end of 1922 his head was prised at 250 000 dinars by the Serbian authorities in Belgrade.

Todor Alexandrov met his death of a hero when a traitorous hand fired a bullet on 31st August 1924 in the legendary Pirin mountain.