Ivan Anastasov

Voivode Ivan Anastasov
A portrait of Ivan Anastasov.
Native name	Иван Анастасов Ιωάννης Αναστασόπουλος
Nickname(s)	Yianko (Янко) The Greek (Гърчето)
Born	c. 1880 Meleniko, Salonika Vilayet, Ottoman Empire (now Melnik, Bulgaria)
Died	c. 1904
Allegiance	IMRO
Battles/wars	Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising Macedonian Struggle †
Alma mater	Bulgarian Pedagogical School of Serres
Other work	Teacher

Ivan Anastasov (Bulgarian: Иван Анастасов) was a Greek revolutionary, a worker of the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (IMARO). He was nicknamed Grcheto (the little Greek), because of his ethnic Greek heritage.

Biography[]

Ivan Anastasov was born in 1880 in town of Melnik, in today's Blagoevgrad Province, Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Empire). He studied in the Greek and Bulgarian schools in his town and also in the in Serres, where he finished two years of schooling. In 1899 he became a teacher of the Bulgarian Exarchate in the village of , Petrich region.

Ivan Anastasov c. 1903

He entered the revolutionary organisation IMARO in 1900. At first, he was a member of the revolutionary band of . In November 1900 he met Gotse Delchev in the village of Monospitovo. Anastasov accompanied Delchev during his tours in Eastern Macedonia. He worked as a revolutionary agitator in the regions of Petrich, Poroy (Poroia), Demir Hisar and Strumica. He was a fighter in the bands of and as well as a secretary in the band of Georgi Radev. He escaped to Bulgaria for nine months and afterwards he again entered Macedonia and joined the band of Gotse Delchev. During the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising he led a group of fighters in the region of Drama, which was destroyed in a battle near the village of Kalapot (today ). He then again escaped to Bulgaria, where the biographer Lyubomir Miletich recorded his memoirs.

At the beginning of 1904, he headed to the region of Drama with a band of 14 fighters, but he was ambushed on the Bulgarian-Turkish border and was killed together with all other members of the band.

References[]

• Любомиръ Милетичъ. „Движението отсамъ Вардара и борбата съ върховиститѣ по спомени на Яне Сандански, Черньо Пѣевъ, Сава Михайловъ, Хр. Куслевъ, Ив. Анастасовъ Гърчето, Петъръ Хр. Юруковъ и Никола Пушкаровъ“, Материали за историята на македонското освободително движение, книга VII, Издава „Македонскиятъ Наученъ Институтъ“, София - Печатница П. Глушковъ - 1927.
• Николов, Борис Й. „Вътрешна Македоно-одринска революционна организация. Войводи и ръководители (1893-1934). Биографично-библиографски справочник“, С. 2001, с. 7
• Милен Куманов. „Македония. Кратък исторически справочник“, София, 1993.
• Енциклопедия „Пирински край“. Том 1, Благоевград, 1995.