Revolutionary Dobri Daskalov

Dobri Zahariev Daskalov was a well-known Bulgarian revolutionary and active participant in the activities of the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organisation (IMARO).

He was born in 1884 in Kavadarci, then part of the Ottoman Empire. His education included completing the second class at the Bulgarian lower secondary school in Kavadarci, after which he studied at the American College in Samokov. During this period Daskalov joined the Trayko Kitanchev Secret Revolutionary Circle.

In 1901, although he had not completed high school, he joined Yane Sandanski and Hristo Chernopeev's detachment, which attempted to capture the bey of Gorna Dzhumaya for ransom. He subsequently also participated in the Miss Stone affair in 1902.

During the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising, Dobri Daskalov operated in his native Tikvesh with Petar Samardzhiev's detachment. After the uprising he was arrested and spent seven months in solitary confinement. Following his release, he remained an active revolutionary and operated underground in the Tikvesh district in the spring of 1904 with other revolutionaries such as Petar Yurukov, Dushko Zhelev and Petar Samardzhiev.

Daskalov was a delegate to several revolutionary congresses and served as a regional voivode. In 1905 he fought a major battle against Turkish regular troops in Resava and participated in other clashes, including the battle near Shivets. After Petar Samardzhiev's killing, Dobri Daskalov remained the sole voivode in the Tikvesh district until the Hürriyet period.

This biographical sketch covers only part of Dobri Zahariev Daskalov's rich history as a revolutionary and participant in the struggle for the Macedonian Bulgarians' freedom in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.