Revolutionary Gyorche Petrov

Gyorche Petrov Nikolov, also known as G. Toskov, Beelzebub, Troyachanets and Marko, was a Bulgarian revolutionary and leader of the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organisation (IMARO). He was born on 2 April 1865 in the village of Varosh in the Prilep district, then in the Ottoman Empire and now a neighbourhood of the city of Prilep in North Macedonia.

Gyorche Petrov completed his primary education at the church school in his native village and in the town of Prilep. He subsequently studied at the graded school in Bitola and the Bulgarian Boys' High School in Thessaloniki. After an unsuccessful attempt to enter the Boys' High School in Sofia, Gyorche returned to Macedonia and worked as a grocer in Prilep.

In 1885, before the Unification of the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia, Gyorche Petrov participated in a secret revolutionary committee for the liberation of Macedonia. During this period he also worked as a teacher, and subsequently as a proofreader and teacher in various schools in Bulgaria and Macedonia. In 1896 he published Materials for the Study of Macedonia, a geographical work describing various aspects of the region.

After the Serbo-Bulgarian War of 1885, Gyorche Petrov began collecting geographical and ethnographic material from the Skopje and Bitola districts to counter Serbian propaganda. In 1896 he published a geographical work that is an important source of knowledge about the region.

Between 1888–1895, Gyorche Petrov taught at the Bulgarian lower secondary school in Bitola, later also working as a school inspector. From 1895–1897, he taught at the Saints Cyril and Methodius Bulgarian Boys' High School in Thessaloniki. Gyorche Petrov also engaged in political activity, supporting the development of the Bulgarian liberation brotherhoods