Toma Davidov


Toma Kostov Davidov was a Bulgarian Army officer and participant in the Macedonian Revolutionary Movement, a vojvode of the Macedonian Supreme Committee, later becoming a commander in the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization.

Biography

He was born in Lovech, then in the Ottoman Empire on 2 May 1863. Davidov graduated a military school in Sofia together with Goce Delchev and Boris Sarafov. Later he participated in the Serbo-Bulgarian War. In the summer of 1895 Davidov participated in the Melnik uprising, which was organized by the Macedonian Supreme Committee. After this action, Davidov joined the Bulgarian Officers' Brotherhood. At the VІ Macedonian Congress in 1899 he was elected a member of the leadership of the Supreme Macedonian Committee along with Boris Sarafov, Anton Bozukov, Slavcho Kovachev and Hristo Sarakinov. At the VІІ Macedonian Congress in Sofia in 1900 he was re-elected Vice-President of the Committee. Then, disappointed by the ideological contradictions between the Macedonian Bulgarian activists, in 1902 he left for Ottoman Macedonia as a vojvode of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. His cheta was active in the areas of Bitola, Ohrid and Demir Hisar. Once he told Goce Delchev:
I am not from Macedonia, but for its freedom I am ready to give my life in any moment.
He was killed by Turkish ambush near village Odzoleni, near Ohrid, on 15 March 1903. On March 15, 2020, a commemorative plaque was erected on its frontal lobe in North Macedonia from local pro-Bulgarian activists. A few days later, it was destroyed by Macedonists.