Tatarchev was born in the town of Resen, in the Ottoman Empire (present-day North Macedonia), to a rich family.

His father Nikola Tatarchev was a successful merchant, and leading member of the Bulgarian Exarchist community in Resen,[5] and his mother Katerina was a descendant of a prominent family.

Hristo Tatarchev received his initial education in Resen, then he moved to Eastern Rumelia and studied in Bratsigovo (1882) and eventually at the secondary school for boys in Plovdiv (1883–87).

[10] After the Young Turk Revolution he openly supported the Union of the Bulgarian Constitutional Clubs, but did not participate in its activities.

Shortly after that, Tatarchev was forced to emigrate to Italy, because of significant discord between then IMRO's leader Todor Alexandrov and him.

The Germans offered him in 1944 to become a President of the Independent State of Macedonia, but he refused, because the Red Army was entering Bulgaria.

His brother Mihail was an activist of IMRO and the mayor of Resen during the Bulgarian occupation of Serbia in the First World War, when he was killed.

[19] In December 2009, his remains were brought from Turin to Bulgaria by VMRO-BND, a modern political party claiming descent from the IMRO.