YORDAN CHKATROV
THE MACEDONIANS ARE READY TO SACRIFICE
THEIR LIVES
FOR THE TRIUMPH OF THEIR IDEALS
READ CHKATROV'S IMPORTANT 1924 INTERVIEW FOR THE New York TIMES, AFTER HIS ARRIVAL IN THE USA FROM SOFIA TO LOBBY ON BEHALF OF THE ENSLAVED MACEDONIAN PEOPLE
Born in Prilep, Macedonia, Yordan Chkatrov came to America in 1924 as a special envoy of the Executive Committee of the Brotherhoods of Bulgaria, to attend the Third Annual MPO (Macedonian Political Organizations, today Macedonian Patriotic Organizations) Convention, in Fort Wayne, Indianna. Chkatrov was elected Secretary of the Central Committee and immediately proceeded to both consolidate and expand the organization throughout America.
After the assassination of Todor Alexandrov in 1924, Chkatrov played an important role in convincing the MPO membership to support the new IMRO leader Ivan Mihailov, who was then largely unknown in America. The next task Chkatrov accomplished was to ensure the establishment of MPO's own printed newspaper the "Makedonska Tribuna". The first issue appeared 10 Feb 1927, and it is still published today. At the 6th Congress in Akron, Ohio on 11 Sep 1927, Chkatrov was re-elected secretary, but considered his work in America was finished and so he returned to Bulgaria.
Yordan Chkatrov continued to be very active among the Macedonian immigration in Bulgaria until the coup of 1934 when he left Sofia together with numerous Macedonian revolutionaries. He went to Switzerland and continued his law studies. In 1941 he returned to Skopie and established a law practice. For all practical purposes he stayed out of politics after the 1934 Zveno Coup.
In 1944 Metodi Andonov-Cento, the president of Anti-Facist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM), invited Yordan Chkatrov to join the Communist Partisans. He declined because he did not believe in the Yugoslavian Communist Party's solution to the Macedonian Question.
Despite Cento's personal guarantees of safety, both Chkatrov brothers were arrested and imprisoned in Skopie when the communists took power in 1945. Dimche Chkatrov, despite Tito's instructions, was spirited away in the middle of the night (23 Dec 1946) on Kolishevski's own orders, and never seen again. Yordan Chkatrov, sentenced to prison for 15 years, began a hunger strike the same day his brother vanished. He died 27 days later.