# Dimo Hadzhidimov

Dimo Hadzhidimov (Bulgarian: Димо Хаджидимов, Macedonian: Димо Хаџи Димов, romanized: Dimo Hadži Dimov; 19 February 1875 – 13 September 1924) was a Bulgarian teacher, revolutionary and politician from Ottoman Macedonia. He was among the leaders of the left-wing of Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), which he considered a Bulgarian creation. In 1923 he became a deputy in the Bulgarian Parliament from the Bulgarian Communist Party.

## Life

Dimo Hadzhidimov was born on 19 February 1875 in Gorno Brodi, Ottoman Empire, now located in Serres regional unit, Greece. In 1880 his family emigrated from the Ottoman Empire and settled in Dupnitsa, Bulgaria. He studied pedagogy from 1891 until 1894 in Kyustendil and then in Sofia, at this time he adopted socialist ideas and later became a member of the Macedonian-Adrianople Social Democratic Group. After that he worked as a teacher in the Bulgarian schools in Dupnitsa and later in Samokov. In May 1903 Hadzhidimov arrived in the village of Banitsa for a meeting with Gotse Delchev, after which the famous skirmish with Ottoman troops happened in which Delchev got killed, while Hadzhidimov managed to escape. Later that year he participated in Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising. The following years he was involved with the Serres group of Yane Sandanski. After the Young Turk Revolution in 1908 he returned to Ottoman Macedonia and was one of the founders of the People's Federative Party (Bulgarian Section). In 1909 he went back to Sofia, where Hadzhidimov joined the Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers' Party (Narrow Socialists). During the Balkan Wars Hadzhidimov was a Bulgarian sergeant. He was captured in Thessaloniki during the Second Balkan War and was exiled by the Greek authorities to the island of Paleo Trikeri, where he contracted jaundice. He was later released and returned to Bulgaria. During the First World War, due to his deteriorating health, he served as a non-combatant. In 1919 Hadzhidimov was among the founders of the Provisional representation of the former United Internal Revolutionary Organization. The same year he published his brochure called "Back to the autonomy" in which he considered that IMRO and the idea of autonomy was launched by the Bulgarians. Hadzidimov was convinced that Macedonian Bulgarians should exist politically outside Bulgaria and together with other "nationalities" of Macedonia. This view surely promoted a identity that was becoming more and more "Macedonian". At the end of 1919 he joined the Bulgarian Communist Party and was elected as a member of Bulgarian Parliament in 1923. After the murder of IMRO leader Todor Aleksandrov there were series of assassinations conducted as a revenge against left-wing activists, thus Hadzidimov was assassinated by the right-wing IMRO activist Vlado Chernozemski in Sofia in 1924. His surname was given to Zhostovo village (now a town since 1996) in Blagoevgrad Province in 1951; It was renamed as Hadzhidimovo.

## Gallery

* Hadzhidimov (left) as a student in the Kyustendil Pedagogical School in 1892
* Hadzhidimov with Yane Sandanski
* Hadzhidimov with his family ca. 1900
* Hadzhidimov and his wife Alexandra in 1905
* Hadzhidimov with his wife and daughter ca. 1907
* Front page of the "Back to the autonomy" brochure
* Letter from Aleksandrov in which he accuses Hadzhidimov as a traitor of Bulgarian people.
* Dimo Hadzhidimov with his family three days prior to his death in 1924