Boris Sarafov

Boris Petrov Sarafov (Bulgarian and Macedonian: Борис Петров Сарафов; 12 June 1872 – 28 November 1907) was a Bulgarian Army officer and revolutionary, one of the leaders of Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee (SMAC) and Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO).

[5] Boris Sarafov was born in 1872 in the village Libyahovo, Nevrokop region, in the Salonica vilayet of the Ottoman Empire (today Ilinden, Bulgaria).

Later Sarafov attended the Military School of His Majesty in Sofia, the capital of the recently created Principality of Bulgaria.

During his time under the patronage of Prince Ferdinand, Sarafov was conjuring revolutionary ideas that later proved to be at odds with the policy of the government.

Sarafov had apparently overstepped his prerogatives by plotting the assassination of a Romanian newspaper editor Ștefan Mihăileanu, who had published unflattering remarks about the Committee.

This included seducing the plain daughters or bored wives of wealthy men and persuading them to make donations to the revolutionary cause.

He was described by William Curtis in 1903 as "a notorious gambler and dissolute politician" and by Joseph Swire in 1939 as "violent, tiresome, unscrupulous, with a genius for publicity.

[10] After all seemed lost, he along with Dame Gruev attempted to exploit the Supremacists’ former favourable position with the Bulgarian government, by sending it a desperate letter pleading for military assistance, but failed.

Sarafov resorted back to his old ways, turning against left-wing leading figures such as Yane Sandanski and Hristo Chernopeev, earning him much suspicion.

Letter from the General Staff of the Bitola Revolutionary District to the Bulgarian Government, signed by Sarafov and requisitioning military intervention for the salvation of the local Bulgarians. [ note 1 ]