Revolutionary Yosif Prechistanski

Yosif Prechistanski, born Ivan Nikolov Ivanov in 1870 in the town of Krushevo, then in the Ottoman Empire, was a well-known Bulgarian clergyman, hierodeacon and revolutionary. Prechistanski was the son of the teacher and revolutionary Nikola Rolev.

Prechistanski completed the fifth class of the Bulgarian high school in Thessaloniki and became a teacher at the Monastery of the Most Pure Mother of God near Kichevo. In 1888 he became a monk under the name Yosif, and in 1890 he became a deacon. Over the years he collected folklore and published it in the newspaper Novini (News). He was also secretary of the Bulgarian community in Kichevo.

Prechistanski was recruited into the revolutionary organisation as early as 1894 by Atanas Lozanchev. He became its first activist in the Kichevo district and an organiser of the revolutionary movement. In 1896 he founded and headed the first district committee in Kichevo and helped organise the first detachment of the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organisation in the area under Duko Tasev's leadership.

In 1899 the authorities arrested him and imprisoned him for a year and one month together with other revolutionaries. After his release, Prechistanski became a member of the Krushevo district committee and helped organise the local militia. He died of tuberculosis in early 1903, leaving a significant mark on the struggle to liberate the Bulgarian lands.