VLADIMIR (VLADO) GHEORGHIEFF
TCHERNOZEMSKY 1899 - 1934
READ THE LYRICS OF THE SONG CHERNOZEMSKEE
DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF VLADO
Vlado was born in a little village called Patrick, near Shtip [see Note]. The village was burned down during the Second Balkan War and has never been restored. With his wife and father they lived in Bulgaria as refugees. For more than ten years before the Marseilles incident, Vlado was a member of IMRO, having joined it almost immediately after Alexandrov revived it. At first he was a komitadji in the Veless District Band under the leadership of Stephan Petkoff Sirketo. Later he was in Todor Alexandrov's own band. When he showed rare tact and bravery in the completion of individual revolutionary assignments, Alexandrov transferred him to the "punitive" division of the Organization.
Vlado was a silent, moody person, always keeping to himself, his nose perpetually buried in a book. He neither drank, smoked, nor ate meat. Incredible as it may seem, he once said that he would not eat meat because it was cruel to kill animals. He was of average height, dark, with somewhat broad shoulders, but he gave the impression of being a frail person. Perhaps this was due to a slight limp in his walk, which was caused by the fact that one of his legs, was shorter than the other.
On September 13, 1924, he had carried out the death sentence against Dimo Hadji-Dimoff, the Bulgarian Communist leader accused by IMRO of complicity in Todor Alexandrov's murder. Vlado was arrested by the Bulgarian police, and while he was held in the police station of the fifth precinct of the capital, another IMRO freedom fighter, held for another "puntive" action, tattooed the skull and cross-bones on his arm, which later gave the French police the first clue to his IMRO connections. In 1930 he eliminated Naum Tomalevsky, who until 1928 had acted as Mihailov's "foreign minister" but in that year turned against him.
On July 15, 1932, Mihailov embraced Vlado in final parting, he never saw his friend again. Vlado, fulfilled his mission and King Alexander paid for his crimes against the Macedonian people on October 9, 1934. Vlado's body, hacked by a gendarme's sabre and trampled by the mob, now lies in a Marseilles cemetery. It was buried on October 12, 1934 in the presence of two detectives and a grave-digger. There is nothing now to indicate where Vlado's body lies.
Macedonian emigrants throughout the world have formed organizations which they have named Vlado Gheorghieff Tchernozemsky.