Ivan Mihailov

Ivan Mihaylov Gavrilov (; ; 26 August 1896 – 5 September 1990), also known as Vancho Mihaylov (; ), was a Bulgarian revolutionary in interwar Macedonia and the last leader of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO).

Under Mihaylov, IMRO became notoriously anti-communist and identified itself closely with Bulgarian nationalism, thus eliminating not only the enemies of the Bulgarian national idea in Macedonia but also its left-wing opponents within the Macedonian liberation movement. Mihaylov changed the organization's tactics from guerrilla campaigns to individual terrorist acts. Numerous attacks were carried out by IMRO against Yugoslav officials under his leadership, the most spectacular of which was the assassination of Alexander I of Yugoslavia, in collaboration with Croatian Ustaše. He actively cooperated with revanchist powers, such as Mussolini's Fascist Italy, Admiral Horthy's Hungary and Hitler's Nazi Germany. During the last stage of the war, he tried to realize IMRO's plan to create an Independent Macedonia but ultimately refused to move forward due to the lack of German military support and his reluctance to take a course that would lead to civil war.

During the Cold War, Mihaylov lived in Italy while the emigrant Macedonian Patriotic Organization in the US and Canada worked under his guidance on the old IMRO's goal of an independent Macedonia. This was acknowledged by a CIA report from 1953, which dubbed the MPO as "''the US branch of the IMRO''" and asserted that it acted as a money-raising organ to support Mihaylov's activity. At the beginning of the fall of communism and the breakup of Yugoslavia, only a month before his death in 1990, he kept insisting: "''I am a Bulgarian from Macedonia''" and "''I would recommend to the young people in Macedonia to hold on to the fact that we have been Bulgarians for a thousand years.''" Mihaylov was considered a Bulgarophile traitor and ''fascist'' in Communist Yugoslavia. He is still regarded as such in what is today North Macedonia, while the organization he led is seen as a controversial Bulgarian organization because its ideas clash with the Yugoslav Macedonian historical narrative. According to Bulgarian historian Chavdar Marinov, Mihaylov was regarded as a Nazi collaborator in Communist Bulgaria. He was later partially rehabilitated there, supporting the Bulgarian narrative that negates the existence of a widespread Macedonian national identity before the end of World War II and he has been fully rehabilitated today.

Mihaylov is the author of four volumes of memoirs and a number of articles and pamphlets, such as "Macedonia: Switzerland of the Balkans", "Stalin and the Macedonian Question", as well as other materials describing the Macedonian struggle for freedom. Provided by Wikipedia