Todor Aleksandrov Poporushov, best known as Todor Alexandrov (Bulgarian/Macedonian: Тодор Александров), also spelt as Alexandroff (4 March 1881 – 31 August 1924), was a Bulgarian revolutionary, army officer, politician and teacher, who fought for the freedom of Macedonia as a second Bulgarian state on the Balkans. He was a member of the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organisation (IMARO) and later of the Central Committee of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (IMRO). In North Macedonia, Aleksandrov, who had been previously dismissed by the post-WWII Macedonian historiography as a Bulgarophile has been recently added to the country's historical heritage, already as an ethnic Macedonian. Though, this has caused controversy. Biography Aleksandrov was born in Novo Selo, Kosovo vilayet, the Ottoman Empire (present-day suburb of Štip, North Macedonia) to Aleksandar Poporushev and Marija Aleksandrova. In 1898, he finished the Bulgarian Pedagogical School in Skopje and became a Bulgarian teacher consecutively in the towns of Kočani, Kratovo, the village of Vinica, and Štip. He attended the Bulgarian Men's High School of Thessaloniki. In 1903, Aleksandrov distinguished himself as an extraordinary leader and organizer of the Kočani Revolutionary District. He was arrested by the Ottoman authorities on 3 March 1903 and sent to Skopje under enforced police escort during the same night. He was sentenced to five years of solitary confinement by the extraordinary court there. In April 1904, he was released after an amnesty. Soon afterwards, he was appointed a head teacher in the Second high-school in Štip. Aleksandrov, in co-operation with Todor Lazarov and Mishe Razvigorov, worked day and night to organize the Štip Revolutionary District. The results of his activities were detected by the Ottoman authorities and in November 1904 he was forbidden to teach. On 10 January 1905, Aleksandrov's house was surrounded by a numerous troops but he succeeded in breaking through the military cordoned and immediately joined the cheta (band) of Mishe Razvigorov where he became its secretary. Aleksandrov attended the First Congress of the Skopje Revolutionary Region as a delegate from the Štip district. His deteriorating health lead him to become a teacher in Bulgaria — the Black Sea town of Burgas in 1906, but after learning about the death of Mishe Razvigorov, he abandoned his work as a teacher and returned to Macedonia at once. In November 1907, Aleksandrov was elected as a district vojvoda (commander) by the Third Congress of the Skopje Revolutionary District. On 2 August 1909,