Ivan Garvanov

Ivan Garvanov (; December 23, 1869 – November 28, 1907) was a Bulgarian teacher, revolutionary and leader of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. He was the main proponent of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie uprising.

Biography Ivan Georgiev Garvanov was born on December 23, 1869, in Stara Zagora, Ottoman Empire, into a rich family. His father was the wealthy merchant Georgi Ivanov, who was killed during the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), along with his grandfather and uncle. He received his primary education in his hometown and graduated from high school in Plovdiv in 1888. Garvanov worked as a teacher in Stara Zagora from 1888 to 1889, after which he attended and graduated from the physics and mathematics department of the Higher School (modern Sofia University) in 1892. In 1893/1894, he specialized in physics at the University of Vienna and in July 1894, he defended his doctoral dissertation. From 1894 to 1903, he was a teacher of physics and mathematics at the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki. He established and led the anti-Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) Bulgarian Secret Revolutionary Brotherhood in 1897, as it was suggested to him by the Bulgarian Exarchate. It was planned that the new organization would oppose IMRO and its revolutionary activities, and replace it. In 1899, Garvanov developed close ties with Boris Sarafov, who had become the leader of SMAC. Sarafov managed to achieve a reconciliation between the Brotherhood and IMRO. In September 1899, the Brotherhood was disbanded and its members joined IMRO. As Garvanov possessed the seals and codes of IMRO's Central Committee, Petrov and Delchev advised all local committees to assist only detachments or individuals with a certificate signed by the two of them, seeking to challenge Garvanov's bureaucratic power. He called for an uprising, arguing that the failed Gorna Dzhumaya uprising, which SMAC organized in 1902, had caused a chain of events which could overcome IMRO. His fellow citizen Atanas Iliev recounted his meeting with Garvanov in 1902, asserting that he spoke with enthusiasm about the patriotic mood of the Bulgarians in Macedonia: "They deserve a man who to work for their holy cause," Garvanov asserted. In January 1903, he led a congress to decide on an uprising. Delegates were carefully selected so that the uprising would get approved. A number of leaders were absent, such as Gotse Delchev and Dame Gruev (who was imprisoned). He scheduled the uprising for the spring, but did not set a date. After the Thessaloniki bombings of 1903, he was arrested, sentenced to life imprisonment and exiled to the Kastello fortress in Rhodes, but in 1904 he was amnestied in accordance to the Bulgarian-Ottoman agreement of 1904, that settled the consequences of the Ilinden Preobrazhenie Uprising. He settled in Sofia, where he was a teacher at the Second Boys' High School. He also became a representative of the Skopje revolutionary district. It is claimed there that allegedly the IMRO leaders were betrayed by Garvanov in order for him to seize control over the Organization, transforming it into a tool of the "Vrhovists".

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