Revolutionary Sofroniy Stoyanov

Sofroniy Stoyanov, also known as Hadzhi Asenov and Tsobe, was a Bulgarian officer and revolutionary born on 8 October 1871 in the village of Tser, then part of the Ottoman Empire. In 1880 he moved to Craiova, Romania, where he completed a Romanian school, and in 1884 he settled in Sofia and completed the fifth secondary-school form.

In 1889 he began his military career by entering His Princely Highness's Military School. He served in various infantry regiments of the Bulgarian army and joined the Supreme Committee in 1900 after leaving military service.

Sofroniy Stoyanov played an important role in organising local Macedonian-Adrianople societies and establishing control over them. In 1901 he was appointed a voivode of the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee in the Maleshevo and Gorna Dzhumaya regions.

He participated in the Gorna Dzhumaya Uprising in September 1902, after which the Bulgarian government, under pressure from the Great Powers, interned him together with other organisational leaders.

During the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising of 1903 he was voivode of a Kičevo detachment under Alexander Protogerov's command. He fought the Turkish army and died on 28 April 1903 in the village of Gabrovo in the Gorna Dzhumaya region. His death became an important element of a commemorative card dedicated to him and other revolutionaries.

Sofroniy Stoyanov is remembered as a representative of the determined struggle for the freedom of the Macedonian Bulgarians in the early twentieth century.